by B J Hanlon
Grent stood quietly for a long time, it felt uncomfortable. His eyes finally resting on Edin. “Okay… but Edin, promise me you won’t explore it.” His voice shook. What could make a terrin like that shake?
Edin swallowed, he hated lying to the man, but he had to. The last breeze convinced him. He needed to go deeper. It felt like it was life or death. There was no getting past all three right now. Maybe after they fell asleep.
“Yes,” Edin said.
“Promise me.”
Edin nodded but didn’t say anything. He would hate breaking the promise to Grent, but he had to do it. Edin was silent as Dephina handed out food. As he ate, he felt Grent’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look toward the terrin or back into the cave.
Edin laid on his bedroll with his eyes shut. Pretending to sleep, he listened for the soft movements and slowing of breath from Grent and Master Horston.
Dephina was on first watch, Grent would take second. They’d decided that Edin could take the final watch, but he doubted that the terrin would wake him up for it. He’d have to move when Dephina was awake.
Edin tried to calm his breathing. Slowly, he pried his eyes open only slightly. Enough for a sliver of sight of the surrounding cave. Sitting on her bedroll in the moonlight was Dephina, her head was looking off to the left, toward the open air of the cliff and beyond. Grent slept quietly next to her.
The squawks of the cliff raptors were far off, chasing something in the distance. For some reason, they would not approach this cave. It gave a bit of credence to Grent’s assertion that this was not a natural cavern. But Edin didn’t feel evil coming from it, there was something in there. Maybe it wasn’t his mother or Kesona, but it certainly wasn’t any entrance to the Underworld.
The warmth of the bedroll made it difficult to stay awake. Eventually, he saw Dephina’s head bob slightly. He barely noticed it, but he was certain she was asleep, he quietly pulled himself out of his bedroll. His eyes never left the bard.
He rolled to his knees and grabbed the sword in its scabbard. Carefully, crawling toward the rear of the cave he tried slipping into the blackness.
He held out a hand and shuffled softly to make sure he wouldn’t run into any wall as he moved.
A hand fell on his shoulder, his heart sank as he turned back to see Dephina. Her long hair seemed to radiate in the distant moonlight however he couldn’t see her face.
“Your guardians will not allow this,” she whispered.
“I need to go,” Edin whispered back. The breeze came again but he couldn’t feel the same energy coming from it the way he did before. It was there, but softer, weaker. “I’m not leaving until I go through. I can create my own light.”
“I’m not your guardian,” Dephina whispered as she glanced back at the two men. “I don’t like the feeling that comes from the place. Magi are more sensitive though, your ability to manipulate energy makes you more receptive to feelings, both good and bad. I trust your instinct… but something about Grent’s retreat makes me wary. I think it was built by magi.”
Edin said nothing, was she going to let him go peacefully or not?
“But I can’t let you go without a way to make sure you return.” Dephina said. He couldn’t see her face and was wondering what she was doing. She could’ve been sticking out a tongue at him the way Kes would in her playful manner.
“Tie the rope around your waist so you can find your way back. People who explore dark caves tend to lose their way and disappear.”
Edin smiled at her. She didn’t seem as scared as Grent, more interested. The rope appeared in his hand. She knew he’d attempt to leave and had planned this. Edin took the end and looped it around his stomach tying it blindly.
“Don’t cut the rope, whatever you do,” she said. “If you get in trouble, pull on it twice. I’ll be here and can wake that stubborn old terrin.”
“Won’t he be mad?” Edin said.
“In the House, they taught us it was always better to ask forgiveness than permission. There was always mischief going on at our school,” Dephina said with a sigh, “now do not cut the rope or try and get out of it. Please.” She hugged him, a friendly familial type squeeze. She had become a member of his family. A woman he’d do anything for. A few weeks ago, he didn’t even know her.
“I won’t,” Edin said as she let go. He took a step into the tunnel with his arms extended and his feet quietly shuffling on the cave floor.
Pitch blackness blanketed his path. Edin felt a soft slope rising. He touched a wall and found it smooth and curved like a castle tower without any seams.
After a few minutes, he felt the warmth spreading through him as before. It was a pulsing feeling of ease.
He glanced back but couldn’t see the mouth of the cave or his companions. Edin didn’t need to close his eyes as he summoned a small ethereal ball. The light was bright and blinded him at first. He’d spent too long looking directly into the darkness.
Edin waited for his eyes to adjust before opening them. The halo of the small white glow was only a few feet all around him.
Poking out of the darkness he spotted something in the vacant tunnel. Dusty but with parallel lines barely two inches apart, clearly man made.
Getting closer, he spied the tip of a large sword. It was next to a torn boot. As the light grew, he saw what it was, a skeletal leg beneath ragged red cloth. Edin nearly leapt back. The ethereal light dimmed briefly and he almost yelled.
It took a moment to calm himself. A corpse, long dead, sat against the wall of the cave. A small silver pendant hung around the boney neck. It looked to be of some value, maybe even a family heirloom.
He felt his hand reaching for it, then suddenly stopped himself. His mother wouldn’t approve of disturbing a corpse… he wouldn’t approve.
Stories of grave robbers desecrating people’s final resting places sickened him. Though some stories told of the robbers being struck down by curses shortly after. Edin liked those stories.
“I’m better than that,” Edin whispered to himself and stepped back. The ball of light showed the curve continuing to the right and he followed pushing deeper and higher into the cliffs.
The warmth came back to him, he didn’t even realize it was gone. For some reason, he felt like it was a somber place, almost holy. An old church built into the cliff?
Edin pushed the light to expand, but as he did he could see it wasn’t shining as bright as it should have. The darkness was thick like a stew or an ancient forest.
Was this a good place or some sort of trap meant to lure in people like him? Could Grent have been correct?
Edin glanced back toward the skeleton but it was out of his sight. A shutter ran down his spine. Turning back, he noticed the floor had become smooth, the walls and arched roof as well.
Another few steps when he felt something hit his boot. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of white crash into the wall and shatter. The sound echoed through the tunnel as if it were dropped from a hundred yards up. White shards were scattered everywhere. Edin waited, listening for any other movement. He leaned down toward a larger, mostly intact piece of white. Staring back up at him were empty eye sockets of a human skull.
His heart pounded as he looked around the tunnel for any other sign of the body. There was nothing.
Two dead in here, how many more? Were these people who tried to explore the cavern and got lost? He hadn’t seen any turns or other tunnels. Nothing that could confuse the explorers...
He put his hand on the hilt.
A few minutes later, the ceiling just disappeared into the darkness high above him and the warmth seemed to be sucked from the room. Edin could see his breath. It was a place where humans did not belong. Edin paused. A part of him wanted to run back and retreat to the cave’s mouth.
The feeling of being watched started to overcome him as if a man was peering over the edge of an unseen parapet and staring at him. Edin touched his hilt again and peered upwards, waiting to see something leap out
of the blackness to swoop down and attack. Gooseflesh was rising on his arms.
The shield had to be ready though the energy from the light was beginning to sap a small portion of his strength. Edin didn’t know how long he’d been inside there, but the rope still felt loose around his waist.
Edin tried to remember the feeling of his home. The feeling of warmth, of peace… but it felt absent.
He stepped further into the room and felt a cold chill on his face like the crispness of a calm winter’s day. The chill dug deeper and further like he’d plunged back into the Crys. His eyes hurt, his mouth felt chapped… then he heard it. Rising like a low and slow drum beat rising to crescendo.
Laughter… no, jeering echoed around him, Edin turned in a circle, he couldn’t see the walls anymore. Instead, it looked like a village. His village.
Around him, people were screaming, shouting. Edin couldn’t understand any of it.
A shadowy figure seemed to manifest from the darkness, a black cloak billowing behind him with wafts of smoke trailing his form. The gold badge on his cloak, said a mage hunter, a Justicar. It felt real. All of it, the heat burned, the coarse words like needles. He recognized a majority of the people. It was his dream… his nightmare had risen from his subconscious to take over the world.
Edin drew his sword and pointed it at the Por Fen. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.
The torch in the Justicar’s hand flickered, beneath his hood was a sick grin. They were going to burn him alive. His friends, servants, guards… people he’d known for his entire life, they all appeared to kill the magi… to kill the abomination.
Edin glanced toward the manor. It was a ruin of darkened wood. Timbers collapsed in on each other and the stench of burning flesh was seeping out like a gopher from its burrow.
Behind the Justicar in the same black cloak was Berka. His red hair gone with the only trace of ginger being the bushy eyebrows.
“I saved you…” Edin said slowly pointing the blade at Berka. “We are friends.”
“Lies abomination, you are no one’s friend,” Berka spat. “You are a trickster, a murderer, and now you will be destroyed.”
A projectile came at him from his side, Edin felt its movement. He shielded and deflected the arrow. More projectiles, vegetables, kitchen utensils, a blacksmith’s hammer. Jassir’s.
Everything pinged off.
“Unnatural evil, I condemn your body as the gods do your soul,” the Justicar shouted.
Edin yelled behind his shield. He had a chance, he wasn’t tied down yet. Edin could turn and run. The bubble flickered, the mob dimmed and came back.
It wasn’t real, he saw the sides of the cave, they were far away, but there. None of this was happening. It was his mind, it had to be. He took a breath and closed his eyes.
“No,” Edin roared. He leapt forward and raised his blade. In an instant, the bubble burst apart, exploding outward in small ethereal shards like glass.
Edin slashed his eluvrian steel blade through the Justicar as the white light sheered through everyone else. It all vanished.
He expected resistance, but none came and Edin lost his balance and fell to his knees and drank in the air. Suddenly, it was burning his lungs as if he were drinking down fire. He cried out, shivered and dropped completely into a pool of his own sweat.
Slowly, it subsided. A last shiver then it all was gone. All he felt was the cold stone below him and his hand still clenching the sword handle.
As he blinked his eyes open, he saw light. Small white specs like the stars. He twisted his head and looked around. Concentric circles of the specs rose from the floor before becoming a dome some fifty feet above. The cavern was perfectly rounded.
There were hundreds, maybe thousands of the stars and the light seemed to give the stone a deep red brown. Everything was smooth.
Then colors grew around him, seemingly seeping from the walls as if by magic. Then it morphed and swirled. Different forms and shapes took place, around the base of the cavern.
He spun, watching them and feeling dizzy. After a moment, he saw shapes, people, landscapes, cities, castles and animals. It was as if some unknown artist painted them right there.
“What type of wizardry is this?” he whispered.
Each seemed slightly taller than him and all were brightly colored.
He blinked, Edin couldn’t believe his eyes they were coming together in front of him.
As he spun, trying to view all the murals his hand began to tingle. Edin shook his mind free of the entrancing view and glanced down at his white knuckles. He hadn’t realized how hard he was gripping his sword. Edin sheathed it and shook out his hand vigorously.
Then he spotted the sliced end of the rope drooped loose on the ground only a few yards away. He looked again, how’d he get in here? Every wall held murals… almost like a story. But he saw no entrance or exit. Edin swallowed. He was trapped.
Slowly, his eyes returned to the spot he thought he entered. On what should’ve been the entrance stood a man, cloaked in a white robe with a dark sword and a staff crossed in front of his face. His eyes and nose were covered. The man’s jaw, covered by stubble a few days old, looked unshakeable.
Edin took a few steps toward it and looked closer. The staff held a dark brown hue, maybe a walnut, with etchings around it that seemed to depict objects of nature. There was a snow flake, a fire, a lightning bolt and others. Edin ran his finger along it almost expecting to feel the protrusions but it was nothing but smooth rock. Glancing at the sword, he saw it was an eluvrian steel blade like the one in his hand… but different.
The figure had short white lines emanating from around him as if he radiated the light. This was a magus, an ancient one. Was that what they looked like? It was so vivid, like the figure would step out of the wall at any moment.
He slowly moved, turning to the next one. There was a hilly road with a city in the distance lit by a low sun. It meant nothing to him.
Then a mountain range that seemed barren of all life. It ran for almost ten yards, Edin gave it a cursory look and was moving on when something caught his eye. A small light in the crook of two peaks.
“Here,” a voice whispered on a soft wind. It was pleasant, peaceful but also… lost. That was the only word for it. Then he remembered there was no way for air to move in and out. the entire room was sealed… like a tomb.
The thought sent shivers down his body as the room began to spin.
Suddenly, a whipping wind began twisting around his body and around the circular room. It started to spin and rise toward the ceiling. It sounded like a tornado, a contestant thundering noise. Edin fell, covering his ears and trying to burrow his body into the earth.
He didn’t know how long the high-pitched thunder ripped through the cavern. It was so loud, he couldn’t hear himself think couldn’t hear himself scream. He felt a lump in his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut.
Then as quick as it started, everything went still. After a moment or two, Edin blinked himself back to the present and slowly pushed himself to his feet. He had to get out of here. Edin turned around and ran to the mural of the man in the blue cloak. He was certain it was the way out.
“Open,” he yelled pounding the bottom of his fist on the thick stone walls. He slammed it again and again. His breathing became shallow as his pounding slowed.
Trapped. He was stuck in some mystical cavern deep in the Great Cliffs. Why didn’t he listen to Grent?
Edin leaned his back against the wall and slid down to the ground. He pulled his knees up to his chest and lowered his head to them. Sadness washed over him and he began to feel tired and weak as if he’d just finished the descent.
Edin was a poor excuse for a magus, people died for him and more people would if he escaped. He’d killed, murdered. He was an abomination.
“We were never abominations and neither are you…” a soothing male voice called to him, it seemed to seep into his mind like a wisp of smoke. His eyes opened and he look
ed around. The lights were bright, the murals now shimmered on the walls. “Prove thyself,” it called again.
Edin shook his head and wiped his eyes. The room was still, but he was certain he’d just heard the voice.
“Prove what?” He pushed against the wall to rise. “Who are you? Where are you?” Edin shouted, waiting for someone to appear, maybe step out from the paintings.
It couldn’t have been in his head, right?
Something caught his eye, the mountains. There was a fire light flickering and then it began moving. The thin orange light slid down mountain quickly and out near the bottom. The light twisted around and then down in a serpentine patter over and around hills and vales before stopping before some tall thin piece of stone.
Edin hesitantly stepped closer. The fire dimmed and then instantly ceased leaving only a dark charcoal line tracing the path. He stared at the black line.
At one ending of the line, he saw what looked to be a stone in the shape of a man. There were shoulders, a head, an arm. It looked like a soldier leaning against a rock.
He followed the line back. Near the base of the mountain… something yellow flashed. Edin blinked and it was gone.
Then the line seemed to climb straight up the mountain to the crook. There was no light there now. But there had been right?
Edin took a step back, he tilted his head. He didn’t recognize anything, there was nothing special about the place. Nothing that told him where or what this led to. Heck, how would he get there if he couldn’t get out this place?
Another few moments he stared, waiting for something to appear. Nothing did. Slowly, he a noticed thin white outline somehow hidden within a mountain. Lines that ran from the floor up and then curved into an arch two feet above his head. It was an outline of a door built straight into the wall.
Edin carefully ran his fingertips over it expectantly like the staff. Again, the wall was smooth and cold.
He studied it. At the center was another outline like a giant knocker on a castle door. There was no draft coming from it, no hinges, nothing that indicated it would open. Edin started to run his palms around the center of the door, looking for anything that could be a handle. Nothing.