A heavy thump echoed in the blackness. Kylara froze, instinctively gripping the useless metal in her pocket. The sound reverberated through the cave walls–deep, resonating and ominous. It seemed to sink into the very rock.

Kylara stood motionless, straining to hear in the darkness. The metal in her pocket didn’t provide much comfort.

Behind her, she heard two scuffling sounds. She glanced at them. Yalmay’s eyes were wide. It looked like she had backed up and nearly tripped over Joontah. Joontah’s body was stiff. The two didn’t seem to know how to interact with each other.

“What was that?” Kylara asked slowly, quietly.

“Good question,” Tal said, looking around. “Where did it come from?” He was far more calm than either Yalmay or Joontah, almost poised.

“It came from that way,” Joontah pointed down the corridor. “It’s louder where–”

Tal nodded and held up his hand, cutting Joontah off. He took a few slow, deliberate steps in the direction of the sound. “It’s already very loud here,” he said. “Exceptionally loud…”

The ground rumbled again. Kylara thought it lasted slightly longer this time. She shifted uneasily as the echoes died down.

“And very deep,” Tal added when the shaking stopped. The sound still echoed.

“Okay, seriously what is that?” Yalmay asked breathlessly. Kylara noticed she had pulled away from Joontah, who looked worried.

Tal smiled, “No idea. Absolutely no idea.”

“What?” Joontah said.

“We should get out of here,” Yalmay said. “Like, now.”

Tal held up a hand. “No, wait. Let me try to figure this out.” He crept further down the tunnel, one hand tracing the wall but never quite touching it. Kylara was nearly certain he was intangible again. She wondered if he could simply walk through the wall if things got bad.

“Are there earthquakes in the Up Over?” she asked. She had been to countries where the earth moved, although she had never felt one. Just saw the aftermath. On a few occasions, she had been brought in to help with wards after devastation struck.

“Sometimes,” Tal hedged.

Another heavy thump echoed. Kylara couldn’t help but think it sounded like something gigantic shifting in the dark.

“Naturally,” Tal continued after the sound stopped, “earthquakes usually imply something is causing the earth to quake. Which in this case, would be not good.” Tal rubbed his hand through his hair. It seemed to be a nervous habit of his. “Oh, I really, really hope it’s not another giant caterpillar.” He squeezed his eyes shut as if it were a bad memory.

“A what?” Yalmay asked. She did a double take and looked at Kylara. “A giant caterpillar?”

Kylara looked at Tal. “A caterpillar in the moth and butterfly warren?” she asked. It seemed unlikely.

Tal rolled his eyes, then turned serious. “Let’s hope not,” he said. “I think my friend may be still alive up here. Good news: I don’t think I can be poisoned twice. Bad news, you can. So let’s just see…” He crept forward a few steps more.

The group froze as another noise echoed through the corridor. This time it seemed even closer. Pebbles jittered across the floor.

This time, Yalmay reached out to grab Joontah’s hand. “Is it just me or…?”

Joontah nodded. He looked terrified. “It’s getting closer,” he said.

Tal stared intently down the corridor. “Right,” he said when the sound faded. He clapped his hands together. “Let’s see what we’ve got here. Everyone, get ready to run.”

He strode forward and flung his arm out abruptly as if throwing something.

The glowing orb that had been floating overhead immediately bobbled in response and left forward. It zipped away surprisingly fast, flying down the long, straight cavern and casting light ahead.

Kylara watched the light grow smaller and smaller, the tunnel showing no signs of ending. To her surprise, the passageway showed no sign of curving or branching, just a narrow, rocky tunnel boring endlessly into the gloom. Kylara strained her eyes to see as the light got dimmer and dimmer.

Within seconds, the orb was far enough into the distance the group was left in the dark. Kylara looked at Tal in concern, but she could no longer read his expression. It was too dark. She hoped he knew what he was doing.

Tal, however, seemed to notice her look. “I said get ready to run. Your foot is stuck. Fix it.”

“It is?” Kylara looked down. She couldn’t see anything. The orb was so small and distant now that she couldn’t even tell if it was moving. Just a tiny speck of light in the distance…

Kylara lifted her feet and… oh, her left one was stuck. Tal was right. She must have stepped on one of the mounds of silk that had fallen from the ceiling. She tried lifting it up, and it gave way with a bit of effort. And then she put her foot down again and it got stuck again. Probably she had stepped in the same pile.

Kylara quickly considered her options. She couldn’t see. She could ask Tal for his entad and turn intangible or… she was in the Up Over. Information got scrambled. Perhaps…

Kylara thought for a second, shrugged, then quickly cast an incisive ward keyed to silk. She ran her foot through its edge. It sliced easily through. Kylara pulled back in amazement. It was so… easy. Down Under, she would’ve needed the exact species the cocoon had come from. But here, there was leniency.

She put her foot down on a leather ward instead of the ground and shuffled her boots. Something was still stuck to the bottom of her shoe, but it wasn’t sticky. It wouldn’t get in her way. Not yet at least.

She reached down to feel the ground below her. Some parts of the silk were sticky, clinging to her fingers as she touched it. Other sections had an elastic, ropey feel. And some parts had an unappealing gummy quality, almost like half-dried sap.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Why had Tal released all the silk from the ceiling and walls? They were probably standing on the only patch where the floor was somewhat clear. It would be a problem if they had to run, which she suspected they would. One wrong step in the dark…

“Everyone, on my count–jump,” Kylara said.

“Why?” Yalmay asked.

“Oh, just do it, Yal,” Joontah grumbled. It sounded a bit weird with his higher-pitched voice.

Kylara ignored their squabbling. “On three. One… Two… Three! Jump!”

Kylara heard a few scuffles on her cue. As she landed, she asked the darkness, “Everyone jumped?”

“Yeah,” came Joontah’s reply.

“Check where you’re standing,” Kylara instructed. “It should be smooth.”

There was a brief pause then Joontah replied, “It’s smooth.”

“Same,” Yalmay said.

“I added a ward just above the ground so we don’t need to run through the silk.” By adding a leather ward, they would be standing on that instead of the ground. She had extended it as far as she could. As long as everyone kept their shoes on, the silk would be avoided. Luckily the corridor was almost perfectly flat.

Meanwhile, Tal had shifted in front of her–Kylara could only tell because the distant light had flickered for a half second. He whispered something to Joontah, then stepped back in front of the light, making a tiny sound of disapproval.

“What’s wrong?” Yalmay asked him. “Did you jump?”

He ignored the question. “That was good thinking Kylara,” he said. “But right now, what I am worried about is down there.” He shifted a bit, walking in front of the light again. “We should… go,” he said tersely. “Now. Joontah, which way did Janeyca go?”

“That way,” he said.

Kylara looked in his direction, but it was too dark to see where Joontah was pointing.

Tal, however, somehow managed it. “Good,” he swallowed. “Good. We were heading that way anyway.”

As he spoke, the ground rumbled again. Kylara squinted into the never-ending blackness. She saw nothing.

“Is the light going to come back soon?” Yalmay asked, a note of panic in her voice. “I can’t see anything and I’m starting to get nyctophobic here.”

Kylara blinked into the pitch-blackness.

“Oh, right,” Tal said. Kylara heard him move. Seconds ticked by. Silence. Although…

The buzzing sound Kylara had grown accustomed to seemed to grow louder, punctuated by more shuffling and skittering. At first it sounded like grains of sand moving, then more like peddles kicked loose, faint scrapings on rock. Like thousands of tiny creatures on the move.

Another thump shook the cavern. The sound was the same length, but it seemed to echo longer this time.

“Okay, what the fuck is it?” Yalmay said.

“One second,” Tal said. “When the light comes back, ignore the moving walls.”

“The moving walls?” Yalmay repeated.

“It’s harmless. The bugs are fleeing away from the noise. They’ll ignore you if you ignore them.”

The sound seemed to press in from all sides as they waited for the light to return. After what seemed like forever, Kylara noticed the orb finally begin to grow larger. It came rushing back, shooting overhead and missing them entirely. Tal jumped and ran after it, gesturing sharply with his hands to make it stop. The glowing sphere took a second to slow and another to double back.

Kylara, however, was more concerned with the walls. They had opened.

As the light illuminated the cave again, she could hear Yalmay stifle a gasp. Thousands of moths had crawled out of little holes in the rock, flooding the surfaces. Even the floor was writhing with them. They were even under their feet and Kylara quickly thanked the gods she had put that ward up, or they would be standing on the swarm. Instead, they were standing a few centimeters above the ground, with nothing but air between them and the bugs.

The moths were mostly tan and brown, with fat bodies and fuzzy wings. They looked almost identical to the summoned moths back home. Most seemed to be travelling in the same direction.

“They’re fleeing,” Tal said. He glanced at Yalmay. “Don’t worry, they’re harmless. Everything is fleeing. These are just– well, mostly just–regular moths, but other things, bigger things, will be going that way too.” He pointed in the direction they had come.

Kylara felt her stomach twist with anxiety. “What are they fleeing from?” she asked.

“Could be anything,” Tal shrugged.

Another thump echoed.

“And now,” he said, “now we run.”

Kylara immediately turned and ran, fleeing with a million panicked insects. She made it about ten metres before she realised the light was fading. She skidded to a stop and turned back around. Yalmay had already stopped, about two metres behind her. But both Tal and Joontah had gone in the opposite direction, rushing towards the sound. They were a distance away.

“What’s wrong?” Kylara asked them, frowning.

“This way,” Tal simply stated, pointing behind his shoulder.

Kylara exchanged a look with her sister. Yalmay looked just as baffled as Kylara felt.

“Towards the danger?” Kylara clarified. “The opposite direction of everything?” she gestured at the moths.

Another rumble rocked the corridor. The moths shifted. When the shaking stopped, they seemed to be moving quicker.

“Exactly,” Tal said over the rumbling, “I just said–everything is fleeing that sound. Thus, this way is empty. Go where the monsters aren’t.” A beat. “Basic logic,” he added awkwardly.

“But go where the big monster is,” Kylara said.

“Yes.”

She glanced back at the corridor, where thousands upon thousands of moths were fleeing. It made her skin crawl.

“I don’t know about you, but I’d rather fight a hundred small ones than that big thing,” Yalmay said.

“We don’t need to fight,” Tal said. “Just hide. Hopefully.”

“Look,” Kylara said. “I know how this works. Expect giant moth monsters in the moth warren, I got that. But aren’t small moth monsters just gwiyalas? They can’t be too hard to fight. It seems safer this way.” She pointed behind her.

“She does have a point,” Yalmay said. “And Joontah, what are you going that way for?”

He shifted nervously. “Er…”

“Look,” Tal said. “You don’t want to be fighting that many gwiyalas, trust me.” He said it in an odd tone of voice, then sighed. “Look, I know you don’t remember but gwiyalas can be quite vicious. When they all attack at once–”

And then it hit Kylara, a flash of memory.

“The gwiyalas…” she blinked hard. It was hard to piece everything together through the fog, but she had a vague recollection of hundreds of them jumping from the trees. “They attacked us and they–no, we…” The images flickered just out of reach. There had been blood. Lots of blood. And there was someone else there… the magsman.

She looked at Tal. Studied his face. Despite looking a bit different, a bit younger, he was the magsman, wasn’t he? He went by a different name, but it was still him.

“Let’s have a vote,” Yalmay suggested. “Everyone that wants to go this way, raise your hand.”

She lifted her own hand, then glared at Kylara, who did not have her hand up yet. She hesitated. She trusted the magsman, didn’t she? She trusted him completely. She could feel it.

Joontah similarly hesitated. He was looking at Tal.

Tal, meanwhile, threw his arms up in exasperation, turning in a circle. “You think this is a democracy,” he muttered to the air. “You really think this is how it works, don’t you?”

He let out a sigh as he inhaled forcefully, his cheeks puffing out in frustration. He shifted the air restlessly in his mouth, as he thought, making his cheeks bulge out and deflate in succession. It was an odd motion, Kylara thought. He made a lot of odd motions. “Okay,” he said finally. “Fine. Fine. We’ll have a vote. But first let me speak. I lied to you. Objectively, it’s safer that direction.” He pointed towards Kylara and Yalmay. “I already got rid of oh–” he swayed his head to the side as if counting –“about five hundred of the small to medium sized monsters when I came up here yesterday. This part of the warren is eighty-five per cent cleared. It’s why it’s so empty.”

“But why…?” Kylara asked.

“Because it was a clever lie to make you all less scared, alright? Because vote or not, I’m going that way. Janeyca is down there, and it’s my fault she is up here at all. I can modify the light to follow you but I can’t split it in half. But if you want to go that way, that’s alright. I can manage in the dark. But I am going the other way. Towards the sound. Not away. Now, let’s vote, shall we?”

He raised his hand.

Joontah did too. “I want to find my sister,” he said.

Kylara raised her hand a moment after. “I trust him,” Kylara said when Yalmay gave her a short look.

Yalmay glared at them, then carefully pointed at the three of them and said, “Hate you, hate you, hate you,” in turn. Then she visibly relented. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s go save her. I’ve always wanted to be a proper hero and I’m not letting you three have all the glory.”

“Hate to be left in the dark?” Kylara said slyly.

“Shut up,” Yalmay muttered.

And they ran.