by J B Cantwell
She walked, automatic and purposeful, her tiny feet crunching in the gravel below. Her gaze moved downward to the ground, and it struck me that, to her eyes, she was following an actual trail. The path that extended between me and my father was visible to her. Her pace quickened, and as she moved around the building, running one small hand along the rough stone edge of the structure. Then, as we turned the next corner, she broke into a run.
I followed, surprised by her sudden flight. As we ran, I scanned every dark corner, every hiding spot where he might be. But she went straight past each one, and moments later she wrenched open a door on the building opposite the shop and led me into a dark, musty space. As the metal door slammed behind us, we were thrust into near total darkness. Only the dim light of her headlamp and one tiny window illuminated the room, and we could barely see five feet in front of us.
The building was made of stone, built hundreds of years ago, I guessed. Everything smelled oddly of metal, and a large assortment of tools littered the floor.
This whole place must have been a museum before the drought. It hadn’t just been in the first building, but had extended to the other structures that were scattered about. All around us, displays, long coated in a film of dust and cobwebs, sat where they had been placed for public viewing decades ago.
Cait continued, walking now down a wide staircase.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
She held up one shaking finger, pointed it towards the floor. Taking a few steps forward, her fingers found an iron gate, interlacing between the thin metal bars that kept us safe.
And what I saw took my breath away.
A track jutted forward from beneath our feet, and I let my eyes follow it as it descended down a steep hill, deep into the earth and out of sight. Somewhere in this cave, water dripped, and my tongue moved over my dry lips, suddenly reminding me of my thirst.
I stared down the hill again, rolling down, down, down.
It was the entrance to the mine.
“He’s down there?” I asked.
I could barely see. My hands moved across the iron bars, and I was suddenly scared of falling down into the black abyss below. I found a handle and turned it. Then, realizing what it was, I opened the door and peered down at what lay beyond.
A long, seemingly endless staircase descended into the darkness, an emergency route built beside the track.
“I found it,” I said. “This is how we get down.”
I looked around and grabbed another helmet, prominently displayed to one side of the shaft. The light on it came to life instantly at my touch, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I jammed it onto my head.
“Down there?” I asked one last time. “You sure?”
Her gaze was still distant, but she heard my questions and nodded. I reached out for her hand, which she held out idly. Her body moved automatically, followed me without comment or complaint.
The walls of the shaft were at once refreshing and oppressive. The deeper we descended into the mine, the more cool and moist they became, and soon tiny drips of water ran down the cave walls on every side. I ran my hand along the moisture, licked at it desperately. Suddenly, my original purpose was forgotten, overrun by the primal need to find water.
I don’t remember letting go of Cait’s hand, but soon I was running down the steps, one hand sliding along the wall until I got far enough down to find a thin trickle. It only released a few drops at a time, but I stood there with my tongue pressed up against the wall like a dog. Two. Three. Four drops of water wet my mouth, and I licked my lips, tasting the mineral-rich condensation, a taste oddly like blood.
I became aware of movement behind me and turned to find Cait. For just those few moments I had forgotten her entirely. But she came down the steps at a steady rhythm, plodding down one foot after the next, her gaze focused on the blackness ahead.
I turned, watching her pass, that feeling of foreboding returning. Her movements were stilted, automatic.
Automatic.
I tried to breathe, but found my throat closed as if the Corentin himself had my neck in a vice grip. That blank stare. Her voice, now quieted.
A flood of panic and loss seemed to flow into my lungs like the water in the sea had that day I saved him.
I ran after her.
“Wait!” I shouted, flying so fast down the stairs I could barely stay upright. The light on my helmet caught the edge of her hand, and I shouted again. “Stop!”
She didn’t stop. She just kept walking.
I rounded in front of her, put my hands on her shoulders, shook and shook her.
Every molecule of air came flooding out of me when I saw that her eyes were still clear. Still their pretty blue. Not a hint of wispy blackness around the edges.
Just calm down.
It took me a while to catch my breath. I felt jumpy, and now the sounds of water dripping suddenly seemed menacing as they echoed off the cavern walls. The sound of my own breathing made me nervous.
But Cait stayed still, only barely swaying on the spot where I held her back. Despite whatever turmoil was swirling silently within her, she remained calm, placid. She was no threat.
I looked back up the staircase, part of me longing to turn back now. Paranoia gripped me as I thought wildly that she could be leading me into a trap.
But then I thought about the girl I knew, and I realized that couldn’t be. Something I wanted was at the end of this staircase, I was sure of it. Waiting for me at the bottom of this mine shaft. Gold. My father. Maybe death. But I had to press on. Nothing but misery waited for me in the world above if I quit now.
Cait simply stood, stared blankly ahead. Finally, knowing I had little other choice, I released her. She walked ahead, resuming her plodding pace as she stepped down the endless staircase.
It seemed like we walked for a long time. The muscles above my knees began to ache as we went, and soon I was wishing we were headed in the other direction just to bring relief. I looked over at the long track laid out in the gravel beside the staircase, and I idly wondered how we were going to get back out again. If we would get back out again.
Her ratty hair stuck out oddly from beneath the helmet as she continued down the stairs. With a pang I remembered the braid Carl had twisted into it just a few days ago, giving her the neat appearance of a well-tended child. Now that pretense was gone, and the truth walked ahead before me. Cait was an orphan, a slave to her own magic, the weird talent she had absorbed from the Hills of Elyso. I quietly sang her tune as we walked.
“The child of Elyso looks at me
The child of Elyso sees my dreams
Through wind and rain and swirling hail
The child of Elyso finds the trail”
I followed on. Soon, larger trickles of water snaked their way down the cavern walls. I stopped, an idea occurring to me. I dropped my pack and dug out our empty water jug. Then, just as Cait was fading into the blackness up ahead, I ran after her. Soon, I found another trickle along the wall. I held the container to it, all the time my eyes on Cait as she descended in her lost, stilted gait.
When she was nearly gone again, I flew down the stairs after her. I looked in the bottle. It seemed like I had maybe half a cup of liquid. I tilted back the jug and took the first whole mouthful of water I had had since yesterday. Then, I walked in front of her again, forcing her to stop. I gently took a fistful of her hair and tilted her head backwards. Her mouth opened slightly, and I trickled the remaining water into it. She sputtered and coughed, but she swallowed. Then, when every last drop of the container was down her throat, I let her go again. She moved on ahead as if nothing at all had happened.
We continued downward. Soon, a flickering light caught my attention up ahead. Fire? It couldn’t be. There was no smoke in the tunnel. What was it then?
My lamp bobbed on my head as I trotted down a few steps in front of Cait, and the light I saw in the distance moved with it. I realized I was staring at a reflection, and a few moments la
ter I saw why.
Water.
My feet splashed into it at the line where it met the steps, and I saw the whole cave was flooded. My heart leapt and fell at the same moment. Urgently, I dunked my water bottle into the cold, clear liquid and thrust it to my mouth, gulping it down. I ignored the nagging sensation in my gut, the part of me that questioned everything I came across.
Was this the end of our underground journey?
Where was he?
I turned, expecting to see Cait standing beside me, perhaps waiting for her next drink.
But she was gone.
“Cait?” I called, panic filling me.
I bounded up the steps, nearly missing the passageway that jutted off to one side. I turned just in time and saw the fading light of her headlamp as she continued walking, content to move on without my presence. I ran after her.
This cave was narrower, just barely high enough for me to move through it without hitting my head on the ceiling. Still, I crouched, not wanting to risk damaging the only light I had on the top of my helmet. If I were to get lost down here in the dark, I felt certain that even the straight shot back up the stairs would be enough to drive me insane with terror.
When I reached Cait, she was the same as she had been, driven to turn the corner by a force I couldn’t hear or feel. I stopped her, my breath heaving with exhaustion and relief.
“Don’t run off like that,” I scolded, unsure if she could hear me through her haze.
I tilted her head back again. This time her lips automatically latched onto the jug, and she drank deeply. But it didn’t do a thing for her consciousness. When she had drank her fill, she moved on again, like a ghost wandering endlessly through a tomb she could find no peace within. But soon more than just the faint sounds of our footsteps echoed off the narrow tunnel walls. In the distance, a faint tapping sounded.
For a moment I stopped, watched her move away from me towards the sound. Then, unexpectedly, my heart leapt, and I ran on in front of her. Water was flowing everywhere now; there must have been some sort of underground spring feeding the flooded tunnels. We were just above the level of the water, which trickled down the slightly declining path next to my feet. My boots splashed in the puddles that formed in the crevices of the rock, and the sound of clean water made me feel elated, hopeful. Any moment now. Maybe around the next turn. For the first time on this journey, the fear I felt, the worry about finding my father, disappeared.
And then he was there.
He stood with is back to me, wearing one of the helmets from the world above, just like we did, and tapping against the stone walls with a small chisel.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
I stopped, frozen.
His clothes were worn to rags, and they hung, dirty and torn, from his thin frame. Beneath his helmet, unkempt, blond hair stuck out at all angles. I could just barely make out the sheen of sweat on the side of his cheek as he worked.
This was it.
“Dad?” I asked. My voice was quieter than I would have liked.
He paused, turning slightly. Then, upon seeing the light from my helmet, spun all the way.
His light was brighter than mine, and it stung my eyes. I put one arm up, trying to shield myself.
“Who’s there?” he asked. His voice was alarmed and oddly high pitched.
“It’s me,” I said. “It’s Aster.”
“Aster?” he asked. Suddenly his posture took on a new appearance. He braced himself against the rock wall, his hands fumbling over the stone behind him.
As if he were searching for a way out.
“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t you—don’t you recognize me?”
In his fumbling, the chisel he had held in his right hand clattered to the floor of the cave. His breathing came hard and fast.
“You get away from me,” he snarled, his voice cracking with fear as he tried to make it sound frightening.
I took another tentative step towards him, my heart sinking in my chest.
“What do you mean? I just wanted to—”
“You’re his,” he breathed. “You’re all his, and I want no part of it. You can’t have the gold, do you hear me? It’s mine. I’ve spent years.” He reached out with one foot and shuffled his pack so that it was situated behind him. The movement seemed to cost him great effort, and suddenly I wondered if it had been him to break through the glass above and steal the treasures of this once rich place.
“I’m not here to take anything from you,” I said, pausing. Was that really true? “You’re—you’re sick. I can help you. I can help you fight him. The Corentin.” I angled the light on my helmet, trying to see the color of his eyes. But the glare from his own lamp was too much; I could barely make out the features of his face while staring into that light.
“Sick?” he spat. “That’s what they all say. But they’re wrong. You load me up with your pills and your talk until I’m a zombie. That’s your idea of helping.”
A small hand gripped onto my arm, and I looked down to see Cait holding on tight, her vision cleared. She had brought me to my destination, and she was fully conscious again. And terrified.
“Dad, we’re just kids,” I said, gesturing to Cait. “We’re not here to give you medicine. I can take you to the Fold. I’ve been there. I’m healed now, too. And if you’ll just—”
“What did you say?” he asked, but not a hint of wonder echoed through his voice. He took a step towards me, and from the light of my headlamp I could see that his eyes, which I had expected to be dark with the black of the Corentin, were just as clear as Cait’s.
He wasn’t possessed.
I frowned, unsure.
If he wasn’t possessed, then why was he looking at me that way? Like he wanted nothing more than to knock me to the ground?
“I said, I’ve been to the Fold, Dad. I found Almara. I met Brendan’s sister. I can fix this.”
But now I was the one backing away.
His eyes narrowed.
“I knew it,” he said.
Something that looked like recognition flashed across his face, and he approached me, his arms outstretched. I felt trapped, unsure of his intention. Unsure of his state of mind. But I stood frozen at his approach, the little kid in me waiting to be swept up into his arms and hugged.
“I knew you’d come for me,” he said.
Cait’s hands squeezed against my arm.
And then, when those clear blue eyes were so close that I could see the flecks of gray in his irises, he reached out for me, a smile creeping up onto his face. He stretched out his arms as if to hug me. I paused, part of me wanting to flee, and another, deeper part of me desperately wanting to walk into his waiting embrace. Inside his arms, I might be able to forgive him, maybe even to forget.
I stepped closer, yearning for a connection with the man who had deserted me so long ago.
And he wrapped his hands, not around my shoulders.
But around my neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
His helmet toppled off his head, clanging to the floor, the sound making him jump. But before I could squirm out from beneath him, I felt his bony fingers lock against my windpipe again. I opened my mouth, intending to scream, but no sound came except for an involuntary gasping sound as my body fought against his hold. I gripped at his wrists, but no matter how hard I dug my fingernails into his skin, he wouldn’t let go.
Cait jumped onto his back, biting and hitting with everything she had to try to get him off me. But he was a man possessed, maybe not yet by the Corentin, but by some other desire to kill off his only son. Fear? Greed? Every possibility whirled through my mind as he pushed me down onto the floor and squeezed.
I wished for my staff, regretted in that moment that I had traveled so far and left it behind, even if it might not have worked on such a faraway planet. I tried to call up my power without it, tried to see hope in the face that stared down at me now, sweat pouring from his forehead, dirt mashed into his beard, wildness deep within his sunke
n eyes.
There was hope. There had to be hope. There was always hope.
I told myself these things, and I believed them. But no magic came to me.
The room began to swim, and the tiny popping lights I had once seen when on the verge of death flashed in front of me.
Was this how it was going to end?
Cait was crying now, still fighting furiously against the rigid body of my father, gasps of frustration and panic coming from her throat as her little hands beat him in the best way she knew how.
“Aster!” she screamed. “No! No!”
She took fistfuls of his hair, tried desperately to stop him.
My father didn’t even notice her attempts to thwart him, didn’t even give her as much consideration as one might have given a fly buzzing around his head on a hot summer day.
Pop, pop, went the lights in front of my vision.
I looked deep into the eyes of my murderer. My creator. I willed him to see me, his son, and to come to his senses.
But the only reward I got made the blood in my veins turn to ice. I saw, instead, the inevitable.
Black wisps of smoke flitted into the corners of his eyes. I might have gasped if I had been able to. I might have looked away at this final moment if I had been able to turn my head.
But I could not gasp or look away. Instead, I watched as the smoke swirled around and around, gradually working its way into his irises until nothing but coal black stared back at me.
There was no one here to save me. No Kiron with his stew. No Jade with her elixir. It was over. The Corentin had finally, once again, caught up with me.
I closed my eyes then, waiting for death to finally come, wishing that I had had the strength to somehow complete what I now saw was a near impossible task.
But instead of being launched into a cosmos full of stars as I had been in that cave with Cadoc so long ago, I felt a sensation I didn’t expect.
Loosening.
I was dizzy. Even in the dark behind my eyelids, the world was a swirl of misery as my brain slowly lost oxygen. And then from out of nowhere, my throat opened up, automatically gasping for the breath of life that hovered just outside my mouth, just on the other side of his fingers blocking its flow.