21 | Slumbering Tree

Whatever is watching them shimmers and flickers, and walks out of sight.

Abner, Eli thinks automatically, then corrects it to the boy they are searching for. Thistle.

Eli doubts the kid would walk back into the tunnel. Perhaps he is dreaming—more likely, the tree is messing with his mind. It is otherwise still in the dark cavern, nothing but the trickling water nearby, not even a breeze to touch down here and rustle the branches.

Carefully, Eli takes his now-dry coat from the branch above him, wraps Klia in it, and sets the girl in the roots of the tree. She is dead to the world, mouth open, drooling a little in sleep. Eli doesn’t suspect a few minutes without his warmth will wake her.

“This may be a trap, old man,” he tells himself. “Keep your eyes open.”

He does not intend to enter the tunnels, only to step onto the other side of the ruined walkway and look in, to catch whatever edge of a ghost is haunting him. Testing the sturdiness of the roots and thinking again he must find himself a walking stick (one which will not attack him), he steps carefully the few strides across, leaning against the likewise rune-carved section of this doorway.

Nothing about the dark hallway is different than any of the others. Listening hard, he hears nothing but silence and the comforting trickle of water.

Before he can contemplate sticking his head around the corner and looking for where the shadow of the boy disappeared, he finds Thistle's bright eyes peeking around the corner at him.

Relief catches in his chest, swallowed thickly by confusion. When he reaches out—to either hug the boy or give him a rather deserved cuff on the ear, he hasn’t yet decided—his hand passes straight through.

Not real.

Eli does not believe he is dreaming, and when he glances back, he still finds Klia’s legs tucked neatly where they were.

Thistle raises his hand, the same confusion etched into his features Eli remembers when they were in the forest and Eli had run after him. His magic seemed as if it was taking away his anger before the boy remembered he despises his grandfather and popped Eli in the chin. It’s still a little sore.

Thistle's hand stops halfway to Eli as if running into those large glass windows of Monsetyra’s many structures Eli hasn’t glimpsed in so long. There is some sort of barrier for Thistle, not for Eli, his hand simply continues to pass through.

“Who is tricking me?” Eli says aloud, still to himself, but Thistle starts.

Eyes wide, the boy shoves forward as if expecting to knock into Eli, but is stopped by the same invisible wall. Eli scowls, putting his hands where the boys are. He still has his little gold ring. Cautiously, he leans into the hallways, but Thistle only disappears. When he steps back out, the boy returns, looking more confused than ever and bordering on enraged. Not at Eli this time, but by the situation.

“You can hear me, boy?” Eli asks.

“Yes.” Thistle's voice is a little breathy, a little rough. More likely he’s been crying than anything else. “I can see you, nothing more. Where are you?”

Well, it’s the most calm and collected conversation they’ve had. This is one way to go about it, I suppose.

“On the edge of the aqueduct down in the caverns, did you pass through an aqueduct...?”

At the boy’s open shock, Eli fades off. Momentarily, he’s frightened they have taken a wrong turn, that the monsters did not drag Thistle down the waterway, and Klia has led them in the completely wrong direction—

“You’re coming after me?”

“Well, yes,” Eli says, frowning, checking back on Klia once again. “Did those Unknowns bring you through a waterway? Klia says she can feel your heartbeat, it’s how we’ve managed to follow you so far. Do you know what she’s speaking about? Are we going in the correct direction?”

Thistle is staring at him as if he’s sprouted flowers and vines himself. Unnerved by all this, Eli glances down at himself just to ensure he hasn’t. After such a long silence, Eli is beginning to worry the boy will simply be yanked back by whatever magic is connecting him without answering Eli’s questions.

“Thistle, do you understand me?” He has a thousand questions for the kid but must pare them down to the most necessary. Again, he glances back at Klia, believing less and less this is the doing of the tree they’re sleeping beneath.

Thistle nods, wordless.

“Can you answer the questions? I’m trying to find you.”

Thistle's eyes flicker down across the stones below Eli’s feet, hands still pressed to whatever invisible shield holds him. His eyes flicker occasionally as if his magic cannot decide if it wishes to flare to life.

“I don’t know where I am,” Thistle mumbles, voicing taking on a low, panicked ramble. “I believe I am dreaming. These things…they won’t release me. I don’t know what they wish of me. They harm each other and fight one another, but not me. I keep calling out to Klia, but I didn’t know if she could reach me. Our magics, they are very different. I don’t know where I am. Why did Fa send me here?”

Sympathy squeezes Eli’s chest. It makes sense the boy is not awake while he is seeing this, for those Unknown monsters are likely not to let him out of their grasp.

Attempting to say something akin to calming, he tells him, “Well, he certainly must have his reasons, otherwise who would trust a man so ancient as me?”

Thistle's eyes flicker up, and for the first time, Eli thinks he glimpses a moment of near amusement in the boy’s expression.

Eli winks at him. “Lucky for you and your father, I am quite stubborn. Now, tell me, did those monsters take you through a waterway?”

“Yes,” the boy whispers. “I don’t know where I am. There are too many tunnels. I lost count and direction—”

Stolen story; please report.

“It’s alright,” Eli says quickly, recognizing the hitch in his breath. “Klia knows how to find you, we’re just trying to catch up.”

“Why do they want me?”

Eli shakes his head. “I’ve been trying to figure it out. I don’t know, Thistle. We’ll discuss it when we find you.”

He knows the child is terrified, but Eli is glad for such a reasonable conversation, all the hatred shaken out of him for the moment. It’ll likely return once he is safe in Eli’s guardianship, but that is a concern for a later time.

The boy doesn’t seem to know anything about where he is, so Eli turns to something else he’s been in need of answers for. “Can you tell me anything about this new Order? You and your sister have something different than anything I’ve ever seen. She helped me see the new words from the new magic—” Eli shows his palm, ever so faintly shimmering under the cloth he wrapped around it “—but it is usually still unhelpful. Can you tell me anything?”

Thistle stares at Eli’s palm, reaching down as if to touch it but is foiled by the barrier.

“If I can learn more about it, perhaps grow a little of my strength back, it can help me find you, and fight those monsters when I do, do you understand?”

Absently, Thistle nods, still staring at the flower. Tears hang in his eyes, but Eli isn’t certain which of his words are bringing them out.

“I don’t…really know what I am,” Thistle says with a hiccup. “Klia less so. Fa…he…he doesn’t really know either…he says things, but I don’t really know what he’s talking about.”

“What kind of things does he say?” Eli asks, grasping for anything that may be of use.

Again, Thistle looks up at him. “That he doesn’t want the Order to take us as well. I don’t know what he means.”

Eli blinks then clamps his jaw. This was not the type of hint he was anticipating, but grief lodges in his chest anyhow. He knows what his son is saying in little bits and pieces to his children, but doesn’t know how such things are going to help him rescue Thistle and keep both children safe.

Still, he finds himself nodding. “Anything else?”

“So many things…are you…going to find me?”

“Yes,” Eli says, nearly angrily, not at Thistle, but at the magic for taking his grandson and attempting as well to take his granddaughter mere hours after they were deposited on his doorstep, still for unknown reasons.

Eli doesn’t much care what those Unknown creatures want with them. He will get Thistle back, and both children back to their father. And all four of them will have a good talk about all this.

Abner will get quite an earful about all of this by the time I am through with him.

Thistle flickers, and starts, looking down at his hands. “I don’t know…”

He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t need to. He’s confused or even more confused than Eli, and young and inexperienced on top of all that. If he disappears in a moment, Eli doesn’t know if this strange magic will repeat itself.

“Is there anything your magic can do that will get you away from those monsters?”

Thistle opens his mouth, puts his hands over his chest as if he’s trying to show Eli something, and blinks out of existence.

Swearing to himself in every dialect he knows—and some he only learned for the oaths—Eli steps into the hallway where Thistle was moments ago and finds it likewise empty.

He squints at the area, wishing for his old Order of magic and the ability it had to helpfully identify almost anything.

No such luck, of course.

Before whatever strange magic is at work can get its strange hands on Klia, Eli shuffles his way back across the roots at a snail’s pace, head spinning with this new information. Whatever magic these children possess, it is nothing like he has ever heard of. Even in his dreams, the boy was reaching out for help—which is a good sign, but stranger still than anything he has seen them do so far.

I need to be stronger. How else will Eli manage all this…

Elijah Jyce

the Reaper, the Unknown, the Elder

-

12/23 Buds | 3/10 Roots | 1/5 Filaments

-

Stems

Bladewielder (15)

It seems to have gone up a little, which is mildly encouraging because at least his physical health is not decreasing, but it certainly doesn’t seem interested in informing him whenever he gains a little. Still, it is not enough, even after bees and wading through aquifers, and an odd dream-awake conversations with his grandson.

Perhaps only fighting increases the main measure. Eli severely hopes not. It is the first thing he will have to ask Thistle when the boy is calm enough to have a rational conversation.

Klia is sleeping peacefully where Eli left her, not consumed by the tree or in any other way harmed. Eli sighs. He should’ve asked whether he can share in her magic or Thistle's. There are too many questions and too little time with the strangeness of it all.

Above them, the bright spot in the cavern ceiling seems to be lighting just a bit. Eli hates to wake the girl after how strong she’s been all this time, and how tired she must be. If he were younger he could carry their packs and her in his arms with little struggle, but this is not how his body works any longer. She will have to walk on her own two feet, and they will rest once they find her brother.

“Klia,” he says gently, kneeling beside her and taking her shoulders. “My dear, we must go.”

Klia blinks up at him sleepily and gives off a rather adorable squeak, throwing her hands over her face. Even for a child, sleeping on stone and tree roots is not the most comfortable place. Eli is currently trying not to consider how his back and neck feel as stiff as the tree they’re beneath.

“Do you have dreams about your brother?”

Peeking out at him, Klia nods.

“Does he talk to you?”

She makes a gesture with her fingers generally accepted as a little.

“Does his magic work with dreams, do you know?”

She shrugs, then squints at him. The question is obvious on her face. Why are you asking, old man?

“I saw something that seemed like your brother. He said he was dreaming. We spoke a bit. He is alright, but frightened we’re not going to find him.”

Klia sits up at this, looking at him more expectantly before gazing about the little platform they’re on. At least, she’s been wise enough not to go to the edge of it. It’s a plummet into utter darkness from here.

Testing whether the strange interaction was indeed a trap, Eli asks, “Which direction do you think we need to go?”

Without hesitation, Klia points through the tree trunk, to the hallway Eli was just in. She can’t even see it from here, she just knows. No matter if that ghost of his grandson was a trick or not, Klia’s magic agrees firmly.

And as before, Eli has little else to rely on.

“We better hurry, then. I believe perhaps we are catching up.”

All sleepiness gone in an instant, Klia shuffles to her feet, a little off-balance, and brushes down her makeshift dress of Eli’s shirt.

“Would you like your other clothes back?”

She nods, and Eli lets her change while he stuffs his clothes back into his pack, pulling out some of the dried mushrooms. She wrinkles her nose at them, but he hands her three anyhow and a few likewise dried slices of apple. She may not like them, but they have little to eat down here even after what Eli took from the store, and she will not lose any of her meager strength.

Eli very much anticipates returning to the surface. He is accustomed to this food but would prefer more fresh meat, and eventually, they must find a place with civilization. If Abner and his children have remained alive and sane in one of the most ruined places in this world, there must be others.

Either way, Eli is looking forward to better food, clean clothes, and a bed of any amount of comfort compared to stone and packed dirt.

Klia is likely wanting it even more.

She is already peeking around the edge of the tree, staring at the unsteady branch of ropey roots they must cross. Eli has ventured across twice now, it shouldn’t be of too much concern. The tree above them rustles slightly, a few pink leaves drifting to the stones below. A branch drifts over the top of Klia’s head, and she regards it with calm. Otherwise, it is no threat.

What is drawing the world to these children?

Squinting into the branches, Eli finally catches words before his eyes.

Slumbering Tree

-

Fall asleep against this ancient bark, find some peace within your heart—

He raises an eyebrow. Perhaps they’re not all so violent. What could’ve changed it down here, from a monster to a sleeping giant? Perhaps it did play with Eli’s dreams, but they are still on the correct path.

“Are you ready?” he asks, and Klia nods, still gazing up at the tree.

Taking her hand tight in his, Eli leads them across the bridge of roots and into the unknown tunnel.