by Raven Bouray
He was trying, Emmaline knew that. He was trying to keep her from doing something drastic, but his words had little to no effect on her mental state. “I… I can’t stop.”
He gave a harsh utterance in his language, and she knew it was probably a curse. His hand left her knee, and suddenly they were moving, much faster than before. But the rumbling of the earth did not get left behind. It seemed to follow them, and she shook harder in reply.
The earth around them was so loud in her ears that she almost missed the low, musical tone coming from straight ahead of her. But once her hearing had picked it up, she couldn’t help but turn part of her focus to him.
Singing would be too kind for what he was doing, but the cadence at least reminded her of a song, even if his tone was half deaf. The words were foreign, but the attempt at a melody was oddly soothing. It seemed almost familiar. Like a song she had heard before but couldn’t place. A lullaby maybe. Her heart was still racing and her skin was still damp but his song gave her something else to draw her attention. If she closed her eyes and concentrated on hearing him, then it was as if she could pretend that she was above ground and safe.
He kept singing and trotting along, upwards, and Emmaline realized that the walls around her had stopped shaking. In fact, even her heart had calmed somewhat. Opening her eyes was probably a mistake, but she did it anyway and noticed a lightness that had not been there before. Was it the end of the tunnel? A right turn and the tunnel grew lighter still, then another right and she spotted the light fog ahead, but darker than they had entered that abysmal place. How long had it been? Was it dark already?
Arya perked up and whinnied softly at the sight of freedom, and her captor had stopped his version of singing when she did so. Emmaline looked down at him with a new sense of gratitude she had not nourished before. He was clearly terrible at singing but he did it to help her feel better. The plot around him only thickened with each day. He acted as if she were important to him, but also like he was angry with her for no reason she could fathom.
“Thank you,” she told him when they had finally breathed fresh air and her throat had ceased being so tight so that she could breath and speak.
He said nothing in reply, and they continued as the area around them darkened with the passing minutes.
Emmaline wondered if they were going to stop and she was about to ask when he turned direction and the fog revealed an area with an overhang that could shield them from weather and possible animal attacks.
She dismounted, and they went about their usual routine. Emmaline rubbed down Arya’s coat, starting at her neck, then down her withers, over her back, flank, then each leg in absence of a true bath. Bath. A sigh of longing escaped her after she was done, and her captor pulled the saddlebag contraption down to rest it on the floor.
They started no fire, as was customary, and even if they wanted to, the lack of wood, dead or otherwise, was an obstacle that had no solution. Arya walked away with her nose to the stone floor to forage for grasses that grew in the cracks of stone. Her captor had been feeding her special grain, and Emmaline suspected that was what kept them going as well as they had been with the lack of good grass and even water at times. As darkness descended slowly through the canyon, a strange light caught the corner of her vision and Emmaline turned to look.
Curious amazement made her rise from her seat and walk slowly over to a wall. A blue-green shimmering glow peppered the rock wall in some places. The wall actually glowed with no flame or gas to speak of.
“They be mushrooms. The glow from magic. Seeped in the verra pebbles ‘ere.”
She was only half listening to his explanation when her ever curious nature got the better of her and she moved closer and lifted her hand to touch the glowing wall. A hand's width away from making contact, the light dimmed, which pulled her up short. Disappointed, she drew her hand back, and the bright glow returned. Emmaline turned and walked back to her rock perch as she continued to stare at the glow with childlike wonder.
Soon the area was steeped in darkness with patches of oddly colored mushrooms and moss. A yawn bubbled up from the depths of her body, and she looked around at her sleeping prospects. Rock, rock, and more rock. What was this man’s issue with a good bed? The night before had spoiled her and she knew that the aches and pains would return with the morning. On the proper sleeping surface, she had awoken hardly aching at all. Her previously injured hip was feeling much better and had been since the morning, though in all, it barely ached anymore.
A soft thud brought her from her thoughts when a roll of cloth landed at her feet. She bent down to pick it up and found it to be a rolled up sleeping mat and blanket. Better than nothing. After rolling the mat out and putting the blanket on it, she reached into the saddlebag for a bland dinner.
“No.”
Emmaline turned to look at him and she furrowed her brow in confusion, a piece of fruit or perhaps vegetable enclosed in her palm.
“Fro’ before. No’ all elves ken magic or do it. We can all sense it.” He turned away from her and pulled out some food and a flask from his cloak. How much could he fit in there?
In her hand, she managed to fish out one of the only good pieces of food in her bag and she looked at it with a sigh, realizing that she would have to eat it now and eat the rest of it soon because it would spoil if left for too long.
She took another drink from her never empty flask and stared at the glowing walls while thinking about her companion. He was a mystery that she would have so much fun solving. If they didn't go down into any more tunnels, that is.
Chapter 22
Emmaline woke in an unfamiliar place, but this was not an odd occurrence as of late. She stood in a corridor of grey stone, smooth, and polished like the dwarven tunnels that had been her home for a year just a few weeks ago. No murals or decoration lined these walls and there was an absence of merry fires or lights flickering off of the stone, but instead there were sparse torches that provided little light and only made the air thicker. That strange fungus also glowed here along the roof in small patches and did little to aid in lighting her way.
No sound echoed through the walls, and she had no sense of imminent danger so she decided the only way to find out what had happened was to walk. She was not frightened but knew that she should be terrified of being here and not where she fell asleep. Her bare feet thudded carefully and noiselessly along the corridors, turning one way then another, down and down into the belly of what seemed like a great beast. Her pace was methodical and slow, just in case she really wasn’t the only one here. Hallways intersected her path, but she only turned down a few and did not question what force was pulling her toward a specific destination.
The first tendrils of sound flirted with her ears, and she paused a moment to listen but could only make out noise. So she walked on and as she was carried along, she began to hear that there were two distinct noises, voices perhaps. Yes, two voices but they were still far away, and she could not make out any words. A sudden feeling of apprehension crept down her spine and she realized that one of those voices was familiar to her.
Her pace increased as she went left, then right, right, left until she came to a door, and as the two voices spoke, she tried to pull on the handle. The cool metal filled her hand and she gave a sharp tug. When that did not work, she tried pushing it in, and then clenched her hand in a fist to make contact with the wood. The second voice, deep, dark and full of evil spoke after she stopped pounding on the door. “We have fed you, clothed you, treated you well as an honored guest here in our home. However, this did not come without a price for you. And it is time to pay your tax here.”
“If I were truly a guest here, as you say, then there would be no tax.” It was definitely her hooded companion but without the thick accent, as she would recognize the cadence of his words anywhere.
“Yes, well, you are a very important political guest.”
“You mean political prisoner, yes?”
“Whatever y
ou wish to call it.”
“Yes, well, what do ye think I can really do for you?”
“You know very well what you can do for me. Very well. And we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“What would be the easy way then?”
There was a dark chuckle that caused her belly to twist in a knot as she stood there. “The one that does not involve torture.”
“I don’t know anything. Not anymore. You have made a mess of things the way you went about it and now ye won’t get what you want and certainly not from me.” He sounded smug and proud of it. Totally different from his monotone and stoic speech now.
“You are her Guardari!” The second man practically roared in the closed room.
A sweat broke out between her shoulder blades and the cold from the stone floor began to seep into her body. Why was she afraid now? “Yes, of a child barely old enough to be weaned. I don’t even really know if they still live. And even if I knew, I still wouldn’t tell you about it.”
“Well then, the hard way it will be then.”
Emmaline backed away from the door, which had clicked open and was swinging outward and she screamed when instead of stone wall her back hit air and her feet followed as the darkness swallowed her whole.
Air filled her lungs in a sharp gasp as her eyes flew open. Her heart raced in fear and surprise and she took in her surroundings now. Light, dim and filtered, illuminated the area around her and she realized that it was day now. And that place, those voices, all of it had been a dream. One that had felt so real that she could still feel the cool metal handle of the door in her palm.
First one strange dream, then another, and both were of things that she did not know of, but now that she was awake, the dream was slipping through her fingers. Perhaps it had been a memory or a vision? Perhaps the magic of this place was affecting her more strongly than she thought.
With several deep breaths and mentally chanting that she was fine, her heart slowed down, and as she grew more relaxed, other parts of her body were asking for attention. Firstly, her bladder was terribly full, and secondly, her belly terribly empty. After sorting out her first issue, she returned to their campsite and fished out some food and her water canteen. Breakfast, like all meals recently, was meager but kept her sufficiently fortified when riding Arya.
Her captor was nowhere to be found but that did not worry her much. Instead she decided to look inward and think about her dream. Some of it had faded, but the implications of it concerned her. It must be something to do with magic, but dream magic was very rare and very dangerous. Those who would influence the dreaming world were aptly named DreamWalkers, and as far as she knew, there were none alive now. If there were, they would hardly be concerned with the dreams of a seventeen year old girl that had been abducted by a rogue elf.
But the sooner they could get out of here, the better.
He returned a short time later while she was giving Arya a good rub down of her shoulders and stifle. The fog parted around him like a grey, floating curtain, and immediately she could tell he was in a foul mood. What a surprise. Despite that, she couldn’t help but take a verbal jab at him. “So, when do we leave?”
“No’ today,” sas his accented reply.
“What? Why?” She turned from Arya to face him.
“Tha’ tremble the earth tha’ ‘appened before has made thin’s a bit too dange’rous.”
“What am I supposed to do all day then?” She knew that she sounded spoilt and her voice had taken on a pitch only reserved for those who did not acquiesce to her wishes, but it was almost automatic.
“No idea. Ye will find somethin’ out, yes?” His tone was annoyed, and she knew that she had not won any of his appreciation or respect with her outburst.
And would win even less when she pouted. Her whining had been selfish, but apologizing would only make things worse. “Is there a lake or pond nearby?”
“Why?”
“I am covered in dust, dirt, and probably other things that I don’t want to know about. I have never been as filthy and smelly as I am now. If I don’t take a bath soon, then all my skin will peel off and my hair will fall out.”
Her captor muttered another elven word under his breath. “No. No’ nearby,” he told her in Common.
With her hope and spirit firmly crushed, she turned back to Arya and finished giving her a good rub down.
Arya plodded over to her captor when she had finished, and he brought out that odd bag of grain and fed her two handfuls of it.
So, with little else to do and far more light than had been present last evening, she decided to examine the campsite more thoroughly. The fungus which lined the walls of her stony prison no longer glowed. Instead it looked like any other kind of moss but blue rather than green. The rock walls were brown and rough, and the odd animal sounds came with less frequency and from further away than before.
With her experience before with her strange dream, she wondered what the rampant magic here had possibly done to the wildlife here. Had they been altered in some way, made more or less dangerous, been destroyed altogether by the mysterious forces that magic operated under? After walking around for a while in several of the offshoots from the main area, she returned after finding much of the same thing over and over again.
The daylight had faded and she realized that maybe she had been off exploring for longer than she thought, or maybe she had slept longer, but either way, the fog and grey tint to her landscape was darker, and much to her surprise, when she emerged back to the campsite, her captor was building a fire pit. Rocks clacked together as he placed them carefully in a circle, and her curiosity burned. They had rarely built a fire in their time together, and even when they had, it was too small to warm much by or cook anything from. She was positive that he was trying to keep their location secret from anyone who may be looking for them. Here, though, there was little danger of being found by anyone human. Just beasts. Which was not a pleasant thought to be honest. Whatever magically altered creatures were here would probably not be creatures that she would be eager to meet in the flesh.
She maybe a sheltered nobleman’s daughter but she knew that at least and if he got her killed, she would haunt him from the Underworld in Nyxa’s care.
But as he had been so very careful to leave her unharmed, he must think that there was little to no danger here so instead of confronting him, she took a seat on a nearby rock. And fidgeted, tapping her feet on the dirt floor, grinding her heels, and making little swishing sounds and patterns. Her boredom growing, she picked up a rock from the ground and began to draw and trace in the walls of the overhang.
She was no artist, but it at least took up some time and she heard more than saw that her captor had left again, but she wasn’t sure when. The sky was slightly darker and her belly rumbled, so she took a break from her cave sketches and ate another vegetable. Just as she finished her meal, he walked silently back into the campsite with an armful of dry sticks and branches. Where he had found a tree in this place was a mystery to her. The soil here was sick and too dry for much to grow here.
“Do ye know how to star’ a fire?” His voice echoed in the near silence. “Or are ye too less use for tha’ as well?”
“Yes. With kindling and flint, unless you have neither, and in that case, you rub two sticks together and pray to the gods that you don’t freeze to death.” Her eyes narrowed in a glare. Did he just refer to her as useless?
She thought he muttered something akin to her having a clever tongue but she couldn’t be sure. He did seem surprised at her answer though and that rankled her a bit.
“I may be a spoilt, sheltered girl but I’m not as dim as some of my peers seem to be. My father made sure that I knew things, important things, not just what colors go well together, and how to apply face powder and eye paint, or to gossip in court or keep your face from letting your rivals know things about you. I can read, which is more than I can say about some of my friends,” she finished with a half gr
owl by the end, and all he did was stare at her through the damned hood.
“Star’ the fire then.” He gestured to the pile of sticks and the flint and striking stone that he had set beside it. “The beasts down ‘ere fear it. If ye need me, call ou’.”
“Where are you going?”
“Ta look ahead.” He vanished again with barely a whisper, and she glared at the fire pit before getting down onto her knees and beginning the tedious task of striking flint to stone in hopes of a spark.
He kept leaving her more. In fact, today in itself, he had left her three times, more and farther than he had ever before because he knew that she could not run here. And if she did, she was more likely to get lost and die of starvation or be killed by some animal long before she received help or found a way out. It was a smart tactic and they both knew it, but she started the fire anyway. After all, it was starting to get cold down here without the sun to warm the air and ground here.
Her hands had started to tire, but by some miracle, a healthy spark landed on some of the kindling, and she nurtured it gently with soft breaths and encouragement before it crackled and popped with a small but robust flame. A smile of triumph graced her lips as she warmed her hands on it. Not so useless after all.