It had taken another four frustrating days full of meetings and lessons and paperwork dealing with setting up the new guild and my position as the guild master. It was a struggle to find time to be with Tan-bei at night—despite Sara ’s desperate begging that I be there for her—before I managed to find time to sneak away towards where Nolicia was hiding.
During that time, I only just had enough time to say my farewells to Gomes and watched his ship sail off along the Winster River. It felt lonely, as only I could make it to say farewell to Gomes and Lucia. Tan-bei was being kept under guard by the Three Bridge temple and Castor was in meetings with the king about the punishment of the Devotee who publically outed my identity.
But now I had finally made it to see Nolicia.
The large, seemingly endless, underground cavern I found myself in was strangely bright, as strange moss cast a patchy pale green glow throughout the cavern. That strange pale green patchy light kept illuminating the cavern until I could barely see into the gloomy distance. Though I felt no breeze or draft, the air within the almost desolate cavern felt and smelt fresh—confusingly and annoyingly, I could smell vegetation and freshly budded flowers—but was strangely dry. The dryness was making me feel uncomfortable, causing my tunic to itch strangely against my shoulders and neck.
This cavern was a short way off, and quite a distance down, from the carefully carved entrance that I squeezed through on my to find her. To get here I climbed down some crudely carved narrow stairs, which was difficult for me to climb down as I had to walk partly sideways in almost full darkness. It took far longer than I thought it would to climb down the fathomless long stairway as I carefully tapped each step with a foot until I brought its partner next to it. Before doing the same awkward movement all over again.
Finally, I managed to reach the bottom of the stairs. A faint green glow which didn ’t carry far up the stairs, illuminating the end. Instead of solid rock, the ground of the cavern was covered in ages old dried silt giving the floor a somewhat soft, smooth, and gritty bottom. The roof was craggy and low, forcing me to crawl along the gritty silt floor as I followed my daughter’s mentally given directions to reach her. Stalactites and stalagmites reached for each other, one down from the celling, the other rising through the silt floor.
Occasionally, the two met forming pillars. It was between two pillars that my short and painfully slender daughter sat. Her shimmering silver skin cast in a strange greenish tint from the moss glowing nearby. In the pale green darkness, her hair with highlights of glowing green were even more vivid. She was naked, forsaking even the rags she had worn. Her leg was sitting painfully out in front of her. From what I could see, it looked like some wild beasts had torn a nasty gash into her leg. Wrapped around the worse of the injury was her rag clothing. I could smell the rancid wound from where I was.
I needed to bring Tan-bei down here. That smell meant that the wound wasn ’t healing and had probably gone bad. Too many Guardians had died after I smelt wounds like that. I didn’t want to lose my daughter to a wound like that, especially now, as I was only just able to get to know her better.
Nolicia was leaning heavily upon the iron bound strong box I had taken from South Wharf Gang headquarters. The branches which had surrounded it had gone. The strong box was open, random scatters of coins glinting in the darkness as they lay on the silted floor. Some other random goods, which I couldn ’t clearly see in the shadow of the strong box. In her hand was a thin dull metal pole which only just extended past the ends of her small fist.
Her face was pale and half hidden in the shadows. She was biting her lips, not in the cute way that Tan-bei did when she was concentrating, something I had seen all too often over these past few days, but as if Nolicia was trying not to cry out.
From beneath her leg, and heading around the far side of the chest, the silt floor was disrupted by dragging and blood stains. Now that I looked for it, I saw her hands scraped and covered with grit from the floor.
Her lower arms, too.
Even her belly and legs were covered with grit from the silt floor.
‘Daughter,’ I didn’t know what else to say to her.
Why had she not asked for help?
Daddy, I heard her voice in my head, as strong and clear as ever, you busy, this my fault. My problem.
How could she say that?
She was my daughter, the daughter of Sara and I …
‘You’re my daughter. The one Sara is carrying right now.’
Yes. She looked at me steadfastly with pain-filled eyes. I want be hero like you. Save people.
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‘You’re young. You don’t have to do it right—’
Daddy. I heard her scream into my head to shut me up. You younger than me when you started.
She was right.
You told me to look after that woman.
I nodded, I had. I had also forgotten about asking her to do that for me.
She stayed with husband and wife for three night. Locked in house. They fed her. Treated her right. Took turns with her. Washed her. Loved her. Clothed her.
Nolicia hesitated, so I nodded, ‘go on.’
Wife went out for more clothes for her. More food for them. Wife disappeared.
I had heard some rumours of people disappearing in the poorer regions of Three Bridge. But I was guilty of thinking it was people clamouring for attention. All because there were no rumours of people disappearing in Brook Bridge.
And I was meant to be a hero who would look after them.
That woman helped search. Came back to man. Lived with man. Be as wife for man. I found missing wife. Went to save her for woman and man. Nolicia looked away from me, staring at the scattered coins on the silt floor near her. From the conflicted and troubled look on Nolica ’s face I gather what she saw, or felt, wasn’t good news.
I decided to focus upon something else: ‘What happened to you?’
Beasts from saga of Tree Folk not dead.
‘What do you mean?’ I shook my head. ‘How do you know of the sagas?’
She refused to look at me, turning her face so it was almost fully in the shadows now.
‘Nolicia?’ I asked in a stern voice, doing my best to force her to answer the question.
I have older brother. Before came back. Stole saga from his mother.
‘Older brother?’ I was confused. Did somehow Sirona live in… Came back?
Orla and you son.
‘Was that why…’ Was that why she sent me off in such a rush?
Why did she keep it? Did she love me after I did such despicable acts to her? Or was it more torment she put herself through as a form of penance?
Orla love you. Love you like Tan-bei and Morag. She hiding from you righ—
‘She’s here?’ I asked desperately.
She in M ægen Scōl now.
‘Why not…’ I didn’t want to know the answer. It hurt. Yet I was scared of being hurt more if I found out more. ‘Daughter.’ I took off my ruined tunic and threw it carefully at Nolicia. It landed on her lap. ‘Wear that. You shouldn’t be naked even if you are all alone down here.’
She carefully and painfully leant forward and pulled my tunic on over her head. The neck hole was almost big enough to easily slide over her painfully slender shoulders. Her glowing green highlighted hair was tucked inside my tunic.
I so wanted to pull her hair out of the oversized tunic she was now wearing, but dared not get any closer to my daughter right now. Yet I knew if I gave into that small act, I would start to ignore and overlook what I really needed to focus upon.
Maybe the most important of which was the festering wound on her leg.
Beyond that, there was so much Nolicia had told me, or hinted, about.
Just the number of things which we needed to talk about was overwhelming. But that ignored the importance of almost everything that we needed to talk about: I wanted to talk about Orla, and about my son. About how Nolicia somehow travelled back in time. Then there was the wound on her leg. And also how the strong box made it all the way back here in the cavern. Also, how did she unwrap the branches that Treeman had wrapped around the chest? And of how she found the woman, and where, and what happened to her. And of her desire to be a hero. Of the mythical beasts from the saga which I believed only lived in the wilds of some far northern islands and in the depths of the Suetidi region which had yet to be fully reclaimed despite centuries passing since most of Northern Heartlands was claimed to be beast free by the temple. Even the simple question of just how she was surviving down here all alone.
And most importantly, I needed to know just how I knew Nolicia was my daughter. The same one that Sara was currently carrying inside of her right now.