18 | Very Old Indeed
Eli glowers at the numbers which have replaced what was once the Order informing him of his physical health—Roots.
Elijah Jyce
the Reaper, the Unknown, the Elder
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11/23 Buds | 3/10 Roots | 1/5 Filaments
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Stems
Bladewielder (15)
It’s gone down one, and it wasn’t terribly high to begin with. He doesn’t feel any worse—at least, he doesn’t feel any worse than he should after multiple days of hard walking, several fights with creatures which should not exist, and eating less than he normally would.
Irritated, he chews on a mushroom and glares at the shimmering amalgamation of letters and numbers. The rune on his palm still stings occasionally when he considers it too much, and he wrapped it up with a strip of bandage he took from the shop. When he runs his fingers across it, he thinks perhaps it is growing a tad. Anything growing in such unnatural circumstances of magic is concerning, but he has Klia’s own marking to consider. He’s asked her a bit about it as they’ve walked, but by her distant gaze and what little she scratches out in her notebook, Eli believes she doesn’t actually know much about the Order which inhabits her body.
It is not surprising. She is only eight, after all. He finally remembered to ask.
Much too young to be in these circumstances.
But she is a brave girl. Never finding a way to complain and doing everything Eli instructs, he is quite proud of how she’s holding up. Abner should be proud. If Klia is any indication of the type of child he raises, Thistle is likely much braver and stronger than Eli gives him credit for. He partially suspected this to be true, but such is difficult to convince oneself when the boy glared at him with such hatred. Eli would take such glaring eyes over the knowledge the boy is taken by monsters, alone in these tunnels, perhaps, or somewhere else if the monsters leave.
They will track them down. Eventually.
As with many other topics, Eli has quizzed Klia as to why the creatures might wish to take her brother without harming him, and he has gained few answers.
In the back of his mind, he considers that perhaps she does not trust him, and would not entirely blame her. She must learn to do so if they are going to find her brother and return them to their father all in one piece.
They have walked down this single tunnel for nearly a day. The first night down, there was little to be concerned with. Eli attempted to stay awake a good portion of the night but eventually succumbed to exhaustion. When he woke—with little but instinct and the barest crack of light to tell him it was morning—he believed he heard things akin to whispers in the dark.
He may be imagining it, but it would not surprise him if he were not.
If Klia slows down much in these remaining hours of what Eli believes to be their third day since the children arrived, he may carry her, and his back does not anticipate that little exercise.
“Klia?” he asks, voice not too high in the soft echo which trembles down the monotony of the tunnel. “You told me the Order gives you words and numbers as it gives me. Can you show them to me?”
In the dark, she squints up at him, dropping a few pebbles she’s picked up along the way.
“When I was a warrior,” he says, and wonders if she considers his life with her father. “Those who were my shield-mates could show me their skills and spells, and I could show them mine. I’ve been considering how I might show you mine, but I can’t figure much about this new Order. Do you see anything of that sort?”
Klia shakes her head. Bringing up her book, she balances it awkward to write as she walks.
Fa asked me that too.
Eli blinks at the words. It’s been so long since he’s seen the word Abner used to call him, he never stopped to consider that of course Abner’s own children might call him the same. Eli doesn’t know why but expected perhaps Abner would not have such fond thoughts of the word enough to encourage it in his children.
He hasn’t asked the girl much about her father. In a way, Eli is frightened to know the answers to many of the questions on his mind. On the other hand, the things he truly wishes to know, he doubts a young child would be privy to.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Did you tell him the same thing?”
She nods. I can see Thistle's magic when he shows me.
So there is a remnant of it still possible. Eli finds this comforting in an unhelpful way.
He pauses. Klia falls still beside him, the scant echo of their footfalls disappearing, the tunnel utterly silent. They have been waking in this strange little hallway of a tunnel for so long Eli was beginning to believe the myths about intelligent creatures carving the undersides of these mountains untrue in the most definitive form.
Running his palm across the carvings along the wall, his fingers come back wet with the seepage of water. A bit of moss clings to the stone, but he does not touch it. Down here, he does not know the propensities of things which grow, not with the magic as it is.
The runes nag at him, a memory of his studies as a young man picking at the back of his mind. But he never learned to speak or write any of the truly ancient languages, and even if he did, he doubts he would read them so many decades later.
“Someone was down here, once,” he says. He finds himself returning to speaking more aloud, as he did when he first came to the monastery. Because Klia does not speak does not mean she is not as any other child: in need of attention and care.
“Perhaps these monsters are hiding out in the ruins of the dwarves, hmm?”
Klia only gazes at him seriously. He cannot tell if her lack of upset is a relief or a concern. On the other hand, he doesn’t wish to pry.
Far down the tunnel, Eli believes he sees something akin to a new opening and works on not hurrying his footsteps so he doesn’t exasperate the poor girl with her short legs.
“They say dwarves once dwelled down here,” he tells her to distract from the walking and the worry. “I used to read about them when I was a young man. Not quite so young as you, but perhaps around your brother’s age. They say they mined strong metals for battle, and our swords are remnants of their weapons melted down and melted down over and over for centuries and centuries and rebuilt. I remember something rather important about crystals as well that grow around in the rocks, but it has been a very long time, and your grandfather is quite ancient.”
He finds himself being poked in the arm, and Eli looks down to see Klia showing her notebook. Age?
“Me?”
She nods.
Well, at least she’s asking questions. Eli can’t remember the last time Abner wanted to ask him things.
“Well, that depends on the year it is, and when you’re old and living on a mountain without anyone else, such a thing is difficult to keep track of. But I can say with some confidence I’m in my seventies.”
She gives him a look Eli’s certain he gave people his age when he was a child—as if she can’t possibly believe anyone could live so long.
“And one day you will be my age. And when you are, I want you to remember I told you. And your grandchildren with think you’re very old indeed.”
She gives him another familiar look of disbelief, stuffing her book back in the makeshift little pack Eli fashioned for her out of what remained of the shredded blanket he used for her shoes.
There is indeed an end to the hallway coming, and Eli quickens his aching steps a bit, grateful for a break in the monotony of the tunnel. Even if it’s just a turn in the path, it will be better than nothing. He has asked Klia throughout the day if she still believes they are heading in the right direction, and she’s nodded emphatically each time.
Light from the cracks in the earth fades, but it is just bright enough from whatever shimmers in the approaching door or turn that they do not trip.
Instead of a turn, Eli is presented with a widening of the cavern walls, as the first hole they climbed into. These, instead, are walled with pillars carved by ancient hands, and a set of broad steps lead down from the edges of Eli’s boots. It is dark but lit enough from some source he cannot discern, and Eli would laugh were he not so exhausted and only in this situation because his grandson was taken by monsters.
Klia looks up at the ceiling with an open mouth, then at Eli.
“Dwarves,” he tells her too seriously, with a wiggle of his eyebrow, and she nearly smiles.
It’s only then that humming begins.
Nothing can be alive down here.
As soon as he thinks it, Eli knows this is the false hope of a man already exhausted and overwhelmed by his situation. Of course, there may be other living beings down here save the monsters they are hunting. Eli was hoping not, was hoping that these caverns abandoned to time and age would be abandoned by all else.
I’m getting foolish in my old age.
Quietly, he backs Klia behind him back into the tunnel, hiding in the dark. It’s impossible to tell from where the scant light emanates and is a further surprise given all the effort the broken magic gives to overgrow the sun and block it from entering their world.
Burns…
Eli shakes the memory of the village from him—there are more pressing matters.
The humming does not sound the same as the Unknown monsters stalking them, but he is loathe to test his theory by stepping out into the faint light. Somewhere in this place carved long ago, he hears water rushing softly. It is a relief not only because they were running low, but because water tends to lead somewhere. Underground, that’s less reliable, but it is something.
Eli thinks after the Order and gets nothing but his own numbers in return. It still refuses to help him every time he asks, only when it wishes to. Eli stores that information away for later—to ask Klia. Or Thistle, once they drag the kid out of here.
Turning around isn’t going to be of much use, and by the dim light emanating from somewhere, he sees hallways carved by ancient hands.
Were it not for the humming, he would head down the steps and toward them in a moment.
“Stay right there,” he murmurs to Klia, carefully stepping out from the shelter of the walkway, squinting to see what is above them. It sounds a tad too much like bugs for his comfort, for much like birds, a sickle is little use against such things.
Nothing greets him along the ceiling but wavering shadows. Eyeing them carefully, Eli steps down two of the carved steps. Whatever is humming doesn’t change, doesn’t move. Putting a finger to his lips, he gestures for Klia to join him. Creeping out of the shadows, she shuffles up to his side, hugging her little pack to her chest and looking up at what Eli is trying to figure out. She looks likewise as clueless. When he gets his hand around her shoulder, Eli leads her down, expecting at any moment for something to change.
The steps are more and more worn the lower they go, the stones once laid out with an experienced hand now chipped away with time and dark with the damp coating the room.
At the bottom, Eli puts his face close to her ear and whispers, “Do you know which door we should follow?”
Tearing her gaze from the ceiling, Klia squints into the dark tunnels, some partially collapsed, all leading into nothing. Eli searches for any signs of the monsters, but in a place built entirely of stone, there aren’t many signs such creatures could leave. Eli thinks of the petals sprouting from their skin and tries not to shiver. So far, he has found no sign of them, even along the obvious path through the ferns down the mountain.
He hates being so helpless that he must rely on the magic of a child he cannot even determine is correct.
Thoughtfully, Klia leans out from around his leg, raising her hand. Above them, the humming becomes a torrent, like waves washing pebbles over and over one another.
In an instant, a swarm of something Eli doesn’t recognize shatters to the ground around them.