I guess if someone told me I could put on a scuba suit and go swim around Atlantis, I’d be more than a little excited. If a dude said ‘hey, fancy a few beers and a picnic in the hanging gardens of Babylon?’ it’s hard to imagine my response would be anything other than hell yeah!
I was excited, too. But as much as I wanted to see this place, something occurred to me as I pictured the door and heard their footsteps.
“Don’t touch the door!” I said.
They stopped.
“Something wrong?” asked Judah.
“I hope not. But I’ve come to expect the worst. Let’s check it for traps. If I had created a secret mine full of cool stuff, I would make sure it was trapped.”
The rest of us joined them at the doors, while Kayla stayed back and watched the tunnel behind us. She didn’t seem to care about the place. In fact, she’d barely shown an interest in anything, or even said a word, since Kostig had left.
The doors were fifteen feet tall and made of metal. Maybe steel, I don’t know. I can’t really tell one metal from another all that well. They looked like elevator doors, in a strange way; they just had that quality to them. A kind of finished look.
Set in the center were two drawings carved into the metal; that of a hand, and a circle.
“A door that opens only to the Children,” said Judah. “Only those born into our clans can open them. This has to be the mine we seek.”
I was starting to feel excited now. But as I stared at the circle carved on the door, something occurred to me.
Only those born into the Tallsteep or Lonehill clans could open this door. I guessed that a representative from each was supposed to help open it, given the etchings of the hand and the circle.
What if I tried to open it? I mean, I had a circle on my head. I could attempt it. And then if the door either opened or it didn’t, it would tell me something.
I walked forward.
“Footsteps,” said Kayla, behind us. I heard her draw her weapon.
We all turned around now, our weapons gripped, and we heard footsteps approaching us from back in the tunnel.
As the footsteps approached us from down the tunnel, Kayla and Judah formed a front guard. They were standing with their feet apart and swords raised. ready to cleave our poor guest’s head off.
I watched the darkness ahead, simultaneously wondering whether to pop some wolf meat into my mouth for the buff, or whether to cycle the beginnings of hrr-chare. I settled on a slow buildup of stances, letting the spell energy flow through me but not advancing it too far, so that I could stop the spell without wasting an elemental if necessary.
The tension crackled among us, so thick I could almost feel it on my face like a mist.
“Wolf?” asked Harrien.
Kayla shook her head. “Not a wolf. Two legs. Listen to its steps.”
“Is that a gnome?” said Judah.
“Hmm. Perhaps. Sounds light; not a heavy person. Someone standing upright. They are not trying to sneak, and I think they are carrying something.”
“Something around shoulders, judging from gait. They carry bag and other things,” said Tosvig. “A bag and a weapon.”
“A male, I guess,” said Judah. “Used to physical labor, but not athletic. Smokes the tabac weed. Recently recovered from a bout of stomach sickness.”
“Now you are just inventing things, Tallsteep,” said Tosvig.
“Can you three stop trying to win best scout competition and shut up?” said Cleavon.
I had no clue how they could tell all of this from sound alone. I guess it was part of being scouts, of spending so much time in the wilds where they had to rely on their senses. Or, they were just pulling things out of their asses.
Whatever the answer, I relied on my own senses. Soon, our visitor was standing before us.
He was a male gnome. Tall, with squinting eyes and parts of his fur burned away. It didn’t look to have happened recently, either; he looked like he had been scarred by several burnings over the years.
If I had to guess – and guessing a gnome’s age is way tougher than it looks - I’d say he was middle-aged. Definitely on the maturing side of life, anyway. He had a bag on his shoulder, thick gloves covering his hands, and lots of glass vials set in little loops on his belt, with different colored alchemoozes inside.
“Wolves not enough to drive you away?” said Tosvig. “Greedy gnome.”
The gnome took a step forward. Kayla jabbed her sword toward his chest. “No more steps. Or I’ll open your belly and paint tunnel with your blood.”
“What are you doing here?” I said.
The gnome held up a gloved hand. The material was scorched black, which to me, marked this guy as a miner. Maybe a demolition man.
“I am Erimdag,” he said. “I discovered this place.”
“Ah, you discovered the Mines of Light,” said Cleavon. “So that makes you, what, three hundred years old? Fascinating.”
“This gnome is centuries old?” said Tosvig, staring in wonder.
“Sarcasm,” said Cleavon. “I was displaying wit.”
“Ah. Good. Very good.”
“You just stepped in a giant komonaut crap,” I told the gnome. “Following us here. Were you with the miners?”
“I am a supervisor, but I was not working tonight. Yes, I followed you. I had an inkling you would head this way.”
“Well, it’s time you updated your list of Top Five Life Mistakes.”
“How did you get past wolves?” asked Tosvig.
Erimdag pulled a dagger from a sheath by his left hip. It was nothing special. Silver, with a wooden handle and a serrated blade that looked duller than a librarian’s birthday party.
“You and your toy got by a pack of wolves?” asked Tosvig. “I do not believe this. You are taking me for an ogre.”
“It’s true. The beasts were chasing the others,” said Erimdag. “Only one saw me where I was hiding. A cub.” He twisted the dagger to show the other side of the blade, which had a coating of violet alchemooze on it. “A cub wasn’t a problem.”
“We should disembowel this gnome,” said Tosvig.
“Why?” said Judah.
“For following us. Spying.”
“I mean, why disembowel? Lots of work. Decapitation much cleaner.”
“Cleaner?” said Cleavon. “Spoken like a Tallsteep who has never decapitated anything. Cutting a gnome’s head off would be anything but clean. A mess-free death would be suffocation. Tosvig, you are heavy enough. Smother him, and you will have nothing to clean up.”
Erimdag glanced from speaker to speaker as they discussed the easiest way to slaughter him. He took a step back, and I could see he was thinking about running. To his credit, he didn’t.
Instead, he just gripped his dagger tighter and stared at us. Now, this was interesting. What did he desire so much that it was strong enough to keep him here?
“You must have a good reason for being here,” I said.
“I told you, I discovered this place…I mean, I found the tunnel and the door. This is section 2A3F, and I was in charge of the blasts here.”
“Wonderful, we will commission a statue of Erimdag the Gnome. One made of gold and five hundred feet tall,” said Tosvig. “See? I can display sarcasm too.”
Erimdag focused on me, because I think the others unnerved him. I was a little hurt that my physical prowess wasn’t unnerving, but I held his stare.
“I tried everything to get beyond the doors,” he said. “Alchemoozes, blasts. I studied them with a pair of micrometer glasses I borrowed from Hetrithia. And believe me, Hetrithia hates to lend things. There is nothing. The door has no weaknesses. No levers, no handles, no locks to tumble. Only the marks set in the center…which I assume you know how to work.”
“You want to see what is behind it.”
“Want is too soft a word for something that invades my daydreams, my night dreams, my thoughts when I should be working. I have to know what is beyond these doors.”
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The passion in his voice was clear, and I didn’t think a guy could fake that level of desire. He was being genuine; he really was consumed with wanting to know what was beyond the door he had found.
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“No.”
“I won’t be a nuisance. I won’t talk, I won’t go anywhere except where you tell me to. I will be a shadow.”
“The last thing we want in a mine is a shadow creeping around after us. The answer is no, gnome.”
“But why?”
“Because we don’t know you. We don’t trust you. We barely trust the people we do know.”
“This place is important for us,” said Tosvig. “And not a place for you.”
Not a place for you. So, what about me? Tosvig had never questioned my right to be there. Neither had Harrien or Cleavon. At least, not to my face. It meant they had accepted me as one of them.
As good as that felt, there was no getting around the fact that I couldn’t be. Forget my forehead circle for a minute. Thinking about how I even had one was a whole new path of mystery.
Take away my circle, and I was nothing like them. I was a human. I had pinky-white skin, though life in the wilds meant I was a little dirtier than most people would have found acceptable. I knew nothing about their culture. I had shared none of their histories.
Erimdag wasn’t like them either, but at least he had people of his own, back in Agnartis. He was a gnome; that was his identity.
I was…what? Human? Yep. But what did the word human mean in the context of a world where humanity didn’t seem to have a foothold?
Erimdag put his dagger back in its sheath and crossed his arms. “The alternative is that I go back to Agnartis and tell the duke about your trip. There are whispers about the duke freeing slaves. I am sure he would be excited at the chance to quash them. Or to quash you.”
“Or we kill you and leave your corpse in the tunnel,” I said. “If it comes to it, you better believe we would.”
Harrien nodded. “It is true. Isaac would do that.”
Erimdag took a step back. “You are saying you would spare my life if I leave right now?”
“Not quite. You’ve put us in a quandary, Erimdag. Because now, we can’t let you go. As you said; if we let you go, it will mean trouble. And I don’t like trouble.”
“We will not take him into Mines of Light,” said Tosvig. “Place is not for gnomes.”
Erimdag opened a sheath on his right hip. Instead, of producing a dagger, he pulled out a brown stick of dynamite. I couldn’t tell how it was made, only that the outside was like a skin, holding crushed powder together inside.
Judah leaped forward, but not quick enough.
Erimdag snapped the dynamite against his belt, creating a series of sparks that lit the fuze. He aimed down the tunnel and threw the dynamite as hard as he could.
“Boom boom!” he shouted.
“Idiot!”
“Down!” shouted Harrien.
Judah reached the gnome and punched him so hard he slammed against the tunnel wall and slumped down, unconscious before his ass touched the ground.
The dynamite landed way down the tunnel, only visible by the light fizzing over its fuze.
I darted in front of the group and cast hrr-barrer.
The explosion was first a bang, and then it faded into a rumble as the sound trailed off. Debris shot at us, fragments of stone and chunks of mud that spattered against my light shield like they were bullets, each one dinking and thudding off it.
[Barrer] elemental depleted x1 [Total Remaining: 8)
[Shield] discipline improved by 3%!
Rank: Grey 25.00%
I covered my mouth and turned my back to the tunnel so I could breathe dust-free air. I waited for the cloud of mud and stone particles to disperse. When they did, they revealed a grim sight way down the tunnel.
Erimdag had blown the ceiling, creating a barricade of stones that blocked our exit.
“I think this guy is even more desperate to get into the mines than we are,” I said.
“He doesn’t understand,” answered Cleavon. “It is just a curiosity to him. A mystery without significance. But I fear that providing the context he needs will make him wish he had never left home this evening.”
“Shall we?” said Judah, approaching the doors.
I nodded. “Someone tie the gnome’s hands.”
“We’re taking him with us?”
“He can’t leave the tunnel. That means when he comes back around, he’ll follow us into the mines. I’d rather have him in sight than as an unknown quantity trailing somewhere behind us.”
“Tie his feet.”
“He’s desperate. Believe me, when someone is desperate enough, they’ll find a way around anything. I won’t feel easy leaving him where we can’t keep watch over him.”
“We could kill him,” said Tosvig.
I looked at Erimdag. Killing him would be easier, sure.
I approached him and I pulled off his gloves. He wore a silver ring around his thumb, and when I moved it, I saw that the skin underneath was pure pink, while the rest of his fingers, where his fur didn’t grow, were weathered or calloused. A wedding band, maybe?
As the rest of them watched me, I took Erimdag’s dagger. I pulled the alchemooze vials from the loops on his belt, and I unslung his bag from his shoulder and looked inside. There wasn’t much.
Items Received:
Iron dagger
Red alchemooze x2
Blue alchemooze x2
Violet alchemooze x1
Gnomish dynamite x2
Drawing on paper
Apple
Raisins
Water flask
Pickaxe
I was thankful for the alchemoozes, because I was learning how useful they were. I already knew that red alchemooze started fires, while blue alchemooze put them out. But violet alchemooze?
Well, Erimdag had coated his dagger with it and used it to kill a wolf. So, maybe it was poisonous.
As for the gnomish dynamite, well, I knew what that could do. Whether I’d ever be crazy enough to use it, I didn’t know.
The item that caught my eye was the drawing on a sheet of paper. It wasn’t a map. It wasn’t a riddle that led to a secret of the mines or something. It wasn’t a guide to making gnomish alchemooze or dynamite.
It was a drawing of two adult gnomes and a little girl. Stick figures. There were words at the top, but they weren’t written in English or Kartum, but it was obvious that Erimdag’s little gnome kid had made this for him, and he brought this with him on all his mining shifts. Maybe it was the gnomish equivalent of having a photograph of your kids on your desk.
Damn it.
“Wake him up, tie him up, and let’s get moving,” I said.
Tosvig approached the mine doors. I eyed the circle etched into the right half of them.
“Tosvig, do mind if I try?” I said.
I knew that the doors would only open to circle and emerald children. I might have a circle on my forehead, but I wasn’t green-skinned. I was human, and I didn’t know what the circle on my skin really meant, other than I could learn their magic.
Was I one of them, or not?
“No problem,” said Tosvig.
Cleavon held up a finger. He looked worried; his forehead was wet with sweat. “First,” he said. “It will be dark in mines. Dark and even cramped in places. Do we have lights? Enough food? Check your bags. Make sure we do not run out of food.”
“Calm yourself,” said Judah. “What is this fly buzzing in your mind, all of a sudden? Food is the least of our concerns. We will not be in the mines for long.”
Cleavon eyed the door. “It is the most important. Check your food, now.”
What’s with him?
I didn’t have time to worry about why he was in such a state. It was probably the explosion. I mean, I could still feel adrenaline working its way out of me, and I knew I’d be feeling
a little jittery when it left completely. Adrenaline was a bitch.
“Would you like to do it?” said Judah, standing by the doors.
Kayla shook her head.
“Then I will open them on behalf of the Tallsteeps.”
He placed his hand on the left side of the door. The metal underneath his palms glowed.
I approached the right side and put my hand on it, but nothing happened.
Huh. Guess that settled one question. But where did that leave me?
“Isaac,” said Harrien, pointing at his forehead.
“Oh, right.”
I placed my forehead against the circle etching on the door. Nothing happened. The metal felt cool against my skin, and I felt like an idiot for pressing my head against a door.
What had I expected, really?
but then, I felt a trace of warmth on my head, and a light flashed in my eyes. A series of clicks sounded from the top of the door to the bottom.
A voice groaned behind me. “It’s open. You opened the door.”
“Shut up, gnome,” answered Tosvig.
I looked at Judah. “Shall we?”
“Check your food,” said Cleavon. “Make sure we have enough.”
CHAPTER 39 – Many Faces
At first, there seemed to be nothing beyond the mine doors; only darkness and an eerie silence, holding hands and waiting to welcome us. I looked around for my poker, finding it a few steps away from me. The gnomish goo had burned out from it now. I looked in my bag for cloth so I could spread more, but I found nothing.
“I need your gloves,” I said, nodding at Erimdag.
His nose was already swollen from where Judah had punched him, and his fur and coat were covered in dust. I wondered if he was beginning to regret following us. It can’t have gone the way he expected it to, and I almost felt sorry for the gnome.
Not quite, but almost.
He held up his gloved hands. The gloves were blackened, probably from years of working with dynamite, and they were so thickly padded that I wondered if he could even feel anything when he wore them.
“My da gave me these,” said Erimdag. “It’s a gnome’s right. Bomb gloves get passed down from da to son. The day I see anyone but a gnome wearing them is the day I chuttin’ die.”
Everything Is Worth Killing- Isaac's Tale Page 40