“Fresh Kava root!”
“Polished river rocks, perfect gift for your children!”
“Gnarled roots, good for stewing!”
As they passed several different shops, they reached one stall that displayed old tools that the shopkeeper must have painstakingly fixed. Ulenna smiled to the shopkeeper as she walked by, impressed with his handiwork, and yet, the man did not return her gesture. Ulenna continued past the broody man without another look, unsure if all Grottoans were as unpleasant.
Several more minutes of walking passed as the woman named Tess led them through the great throng of shop stalls. The tool repairman’s reaction as Ulenna had passed by had given her a weird feeling. By the time she’d cleared the shops, however, she’d received several more looks of irritation, surprise, and even anger. Ulenna had no idea why they were so upset by her presence.
Maybe they don’t like people from Ashbourne.
That couldn’t be it. How would people even know where she was from? Ulenna continued to shadow the women until they came upon a small neighborhood. Unlike the stone houses in Ashbourne, the ones on the street they now approached appeared to be made of dirt.
“Mud,” Mayge offered. She was peering over her shoulder at her young ward as they walked, noticing as Ulenna eyed the structures with interest.
“Mud?” asked Ulenna, confused.
“The homes, they’re made from mud. The Surge floods once a cycle, bringing in fresh loads of clay mud which make excellent homes, as you can see.”
Ulenna nodded, gazing at the quaint little houses as they took a sharp left turn onto an empty street. This lane appeared shorter than others they’d passed by so far. As she squinted ahead, she was unable to make out its end. It took a few minutes for her to realize that the street appeared shorter because it was much darker than the rest of the lanes.
She gazed up at the pyrus lamps, noticing that the flames were low and sputtering.
Almost empty, she thought to herself. Ulenna glanced back at the main road and its blazing pyrus lamps.
Why is this road so dark?
As the hair prickled on the back of her neck, Ulenna quickened her pace, trying to close the distance between her and the other women. Each house they passed on the empty street was dark, as if no one was home. The young woman noticed that each domicile had an identical walkway made with flat stones, while each dooryard was separated by short decorative rock walls.
Family homes in the Grotto are much nicer than those in Ashbourne.
Ulenna imagined Ashbournian children playing out front of the homes she now walked past, playing rock ball, or chasing each other. Life was much harder for kids back in her burrow, as most families were broken from one or both parents perishing in the mines. As she walked past the empty dirt yards on the lane, she clenched her fists, irritated as the inequality of life throughout Alysium became more apparent to her with each passing day.
Suddenly, she got the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching her. First, she scanned the houses; however, the window rushes were all closed. Ulenna then glanced behind her and up the empty street. She was shocked to find it no longer empty. Several darkened figures were now quickly mirroring their advancement up the lane.
Heart leaping into her throat, she quickened her pace, nearly running into Mayge’s back. She took one last glance over her shoulder to find the figures still silently approaching.
“We aren’t alone,” Ulenna whispered with a distinct note of panic in her voice.
“We know dear,” Mayge calmly replied as she and the shopkeeper took a sudden turn down one of the darkened stone walkways. As they approached the small mud house at the end of the path, Ulenna noticed the home had fabric hangings that blocked the view out the windows. As they reached the doorway, the woman leading Mayge swept aside the fabric rushes that blocked the door and beckoned the others to enter.
Ulenna, spying the shadowy figures nearing even closer, hurriedly ducked inside, closely followed by Mayge.
As the woman called Tess dropped the rushes, the room fell into utter darkness. Ulenna stood still as she heard the faint sounds of bumping and rummaging until finally, she heard the familiar sound of strike stones.
She turned toward the sound, which came from further inside the room. Then, Ulenna saw a spark tumbling through the air in the darkness. Several more times, the stones were struck, casting sparks downward and into what Ulenna could only assume was a dish of pyrus. On her fifth attempt, a small shower of sparks rained down, finally igniting the pyrus, filling a small bowl with bright blue flames.
Ulenna felt the sudden wave of warmth cover her like a blanket, feeling relief from the chill that always clung to her bones.
“Ah, that’s better,” murmured Mayge as she smiled, walking over to the pyrus fire to better warm herself.
“Just in time,” came a deep voice from the doorway behind them.
Ulenna spun around as the door rushes were pushed aside, and several shadowy figures entered the house. One by one, the strangers ducked past the heavy fabric until the three women were outnumbered.
“It’s nice to see you again, Mayge,” offered the stranger who’d first stepped inside.
Mayge smiled kindly as she stepped forward, embracing the large man. “It’s been too long, Brutus,” she said as she disappeared into his hug, as the man was much taller than she, with thick arms and wild wiry hair. Ulenna watched silently as Mayge embraced each member of the group, before suddenly recognizing some of the people that stood among them.
“Wait, you’re the tool repairman who glared at me when we walked by!” Ulenna blurted out as she placed where she’d seen him.
The man looked at her sharply, holding his tongue as he glanced inquiringly toward Mayge.
“Ulenna, my ward,” Mayge explained with a smile.
Upon hearing her name, the young woman held her head high and steady as the large man approached her with a sharp look of appraisal.
Stopping just before her, the massive man crossed his arms and glowered down at Ulenna, tilting his head to the side, inspecting her as if she was a meal he was about to consume.
“Doesn’t resemble Uris much, but I see some of Leena…same stare too,” said the man, his voice scratchy.
Ulenna’s heart nearly stopped at the mention of her parents’ names.
“You knew my parents?”
The man nodded.
“How?”
“It’s complicated,” the man responded.
Ulenna glanced toward Mayge, and upon receiving a reassuring nod, she turned back to the man, “I’ve got time.”
The man called Brutus stood in silence for a few moments, appraising Ulenna as he obviously did some thinking. Reluctantly, he turned to the woman of the house, his expression one of defeat. “Tess, is there somewhere we can all sit and talk? This could take a while.”
Their hostess nodded and motioned for the group to follow her into a back room, retrieving the ignited dish of pyrus and holding it steadily ahead of her to light the way. The others followed along quietly. Entering a backroom, everyone waited patiently as Tess crossed the chamber, approaching its center with her small dish of blue flames.
Ulenna watched the woman bend slightly, pouring the small dish into what appeared to be a high rimmed bowl of stone. As the flaming pyrus flowed into the more substantial stone basin, it ignited the pool of fuel within. Flames grew and danced wildly, nearly licking the back of Tess’s hand as she withdrew the smaller dish and set it to the side.
Much welcomed warmth and light washed over the group, and a ring of stone seats came into view. The others filed past Ulenna, each of them taking a place around the large pyrus bowl. Ulenna looked around and quickly perched upon an empty seat next to Mayge. The older woman flashed her assistant a reassuring smile before Tess addressed the group.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering why we’ve called this meeting.”
There were grunts of affirmation, and several heads nodded.
“I know our next meeting wasn’t supposed to be for a while. However, things in Ashbourne have complicated our timeline,” reported Tess as she leaned forward, putting her hands on her knees.
“What developments?” asked Brutus with a scowl.
“Ulenna, why don’t you tell us what’s been happening in the mines,” Mayge requested.
Ulenna’s heart danced within her chest as she cleared her throat nervously. “There was a cave-in.”
“There are always cave-ins,” snapped one of the others.
“Shh, let her speak,” hissed Tess.
“Tell them where it was child,” Mayge urged.
Ulenna licked her lips before complying, “It was in mineshaft eight.”
“Eight?” several of the observers whispered nervously.
“That’s right,” Ulenna confirmed as she began to elaborate. “When Obadiah discovered that his son was in the cave-in, he called for all the miners to excavate the tunnel immediately.”
All the miners?” asked one of the women that Ulenna didn’t know.
She nodded.
Alarmed by her report, angry whispers broke out among the throng of visitors.
“That means we don’t have as much time as we first thought,” Brutus spoke, his scratchy voice sounding anxious.
Ulenna gazed at the members of the circle, seeing looks of apprehension on every face.
“We have to warn people–we have to warn everyone!” called a different man within the group.
“Kent, we can’t panic,” snapped Mayge, “no one knows the things we know.”
Others nodded in agreement as Mayge’s glance once again fell onto her ward. “Perhaps we should test Ulenna and see how others might react to the truth.”
There was silence within the group.
“What truth?” Ulenna asked with impatience. She didn’t appreciate being pulled into things she didn’t understand. If she was important enough to drag all the way there from Ashbourne, she deserved to know what was going on.
There was silence for a few moments before Brutus spoke again. “You asked in the other room how I knew your parents.”
Ulenna nodded, remaining quiet.
“I knew them very well,” Brutus explained, “Uris, Leena, and I were all raised together in Ashbourne, although I eventually left for the Grotto because of certain…obligations.”
Ulenna listened as Brutus rattled off details about her parents that only one of their very closest friends could have known.
“When I was assigned to the mines many cycles ago, I was on a team with your parents. We were in tunnel eight when we broke through to what we thought was a void.”
“A void?” Ulenna asked, as the reference sounded alien to her.
“When we mined back twenty cycles ago, it wasn’t uncommon to find voids or naturally forming empty spaces in the rock. In fact, the Apex was created from a large void that my parents found during their mining days.”
“The Apex?” Ulenna asked as her confusion grew, “but we haven’t mined much deeper than the Apex, how can we have made so little progress in all this time?”
Brutus smiled, flashing grubby teeth from underneath his wiry facial hair.
“Smart girl, seems strange, doesn’t it?”
Ulenna nodded.
“The void that my team broke into seemed a little too polished to us. The walls inside were smooth, like melted stone, and there were dusty boot prints on the tunnel floor. We realized someone had purposely caved-in the tunnel at some point, but we had no idea why.
Ulenna leaned forward, clasping her hands together as she listened.
“When we told the foreman what we’d found, he was furious. He screamed at us, saying we were supposed to be digging in tunnel six, not eight. When my team pressed further, the foreman said the tunnel map must’ve been marked wrong.” Brutus shook his head as if the explanation was moot. “My parents mapped those tunnels themselves, and their measurements were never wrong.”
Ulenna nodded as the giant man continued.
“The next day, I returned to the mine, ready and raring to ask more questions, but I found that I’d been reassigned.”
“Reassigned? To where?”
“The Grotto,” Brutus replied curtly.
“They sent you away from your burrow?” Ulenna asked wide-eyed.
Brutus nodded his head.
“What happened to your team?” Ulenna asked, already knowing the whereabouts of two team members–her parents.
“Uris, Leena, and the others were broken apart and sent to new mining teams. Within one cycle, they were all dead.”
Ulenna’s mood became somber as she remembered back to when she’d lost her parents.
“After the death of my friends, I began questioning other Ashbournians that worked in the Grotto, and their stories were all the same as mine. They’d found something unusual in the mines, and when they brought it to someone’s attention, they were told to never mind. Subsequently, each miner was dismissed and transferred away.”
Brutus paused his story to look around at the others. They were all nodding as if they’d been through similar experiences.
“Some of us refused to accept the lies we were told. Some of us began to dig deeper into Alysium’s past.” Brutus continued until Ulenna held her hand up.
“Alysium’s past? You mean this involves more than just Ashbourne?”
Brutus nodded, followed by the others.
“This involves every corner of Alysium dear, all the way back to when it was first created,” Mayge said solemnly.
“What do you mean when Alysium was first created?” Ulenna asked, bewildered. “Alysium was created by the gods a millennium ago.”
“Yes, our history tells us that the gods created Alysium and its people to protect these sacred grounds until their return. We were supposed to create a haven, which the gods would someday return to and rejoice,” recited Mayge, as if she was reading from a script.
“One people united toward a common goal,” Ulenna confirmed, recalling her lessons as a child.
Mayge and the others nodded.
“That’s the biggest deception of all,” said Brutus flatly.
“Deception?” asked Ulenna with suspicion.
“All of it,” elaborated Mayge, to which more nods and somber expressions from the group confirmed.
“We haven’t been here for a millennium,” said Tess.
“We weren’t put here by the gods,” said Brutus.
“We are definitely not one people,” added the man whom the others had called Kent.
“We are not the protectors of Alysium, we are slaves and have been imprisoned within it,” Mayge revealed, as silence overtook the room.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Maybe Charlie and I should look ahead and see what we can find?” Lara asked absentmindedly as she prepared their lunch. Luckily, their provisions from station two were still sustaining them as they ate a hearty meal of dried mushrooms and kava roots.
“The last time we split up, things didn’t end so well,” said Ranelle truthfully as she glanced toward Gideon. His unconscious body was covered with a small blanket, and there was a cool towel on his forehead.
“Oh, come on, this is us we’re talking about,” said Charlie as he gestured toward himself and Lara, giving Ranelle a patronizing look.
“Go ahead, but we don’t even know where to go next,” said Ranelle as she removed the damp cloth so she could change Gideon’s dressing, “plus, don’t forget that Abree’s on the other side of that lake.” She never wanted to see the girl again, and the best way to accomplish that was to keep the sprawling body of water between them and her.
Peeling off Gideon’s old bandage, Ranelle cleaned the wound, softly applying more of the red-needled poultice. Since Ranelle had sewn up the gash the day before, the injury had already lost most of its redness and was beginning to scab over neatly.
“How does it look?” Lara questioned as she stood and crossed
the small cave, kneeling to give Ranelle her lunch.
“It’s getting better,” said Ranelle accepting the food gratefully. She popped a chunk of root into her mouth, talking between chews, “at least from a wound healing standpoint–but I won’t know anything more until he wakes up.”
“What else could there be?” asked Charlie, feeling left out as he sauntered across the cave to sit with the girls while they ate.
“Well,” said Ranelle, washing down a bite of root with a swig of water from her water bladder, “there could be bleeding inside his skull I suppose. There could also be damage to his reflexes or to his brain. He might not be able to move or think normally when he wakes. If he wakes, that is.”
They glanced at Gideon as he slumbered on in his ignorance, his friends hoping that none of those possibilities would become a reality.
“Maybe we should try to find help,” said Charlie while he ate.
“Help?” Lara repeated, her eyebrows raised.
“Yeah,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “I mean, if Abree’s crossed the lake in a boat that was hidden, then she must be following someone’s direction, right?”
Both girls considered his reasoning.
“It sure seems like it,” Ranelle admitted.
“Then, there must be someone or something she’s heading toward, right?”
Ranelle and Lara nodded, unable to argue with his logic.
“So why don’t we follow her and see if there’s anyone else down here?”
Ranelle opened her mouth to protest, but Lara held up a hand to stop her. “We wouldn’t have to leave Gideon behind.”
Ranelle scowled, taken aback by Lara’s ability to sense and thwart her argument before she’d even had the chance to make it.
“How?”
“Did you see the pieces of wood that littered the beach?” Lara asked, pointing a thumb over her shoulder toward the cave entrance.
“No,” said Charlie flatly, to which Lara rolled her eyes.
“Well, it was there,” she said pointedly, “and I think we could fashion a stretcher to pull him along behind us.”
Ranelle opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again with a grimace. Her immediate thought was to reject the idea altogether. After she mulled it over in her head for a moment, she had to admit it was their best chance to find Gideon some help.
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