32 | Monster in the Dark

A few steps into the dry tunnel, Eli slows to a standstill, catching his breath. Even when he tries to set Klia on the ground, she clings to him tighter, and he ends up seating himself on the cold stones, feeling the chill of his soaked clothes.

“It’s all right,” he tells her.

None of this is all right.

He wonders what dreams were pulled from her, if the Order treated her the same at all, but doesn’t ask. It is none of his business, as his old memories are none of hers. He cups the back of her hair and leans against the stone wall, closing his eyes and listening to the faint trickling drops of water in the other room. He is still tired, but the strange otherworldly exhaustion has fled.

“Can you still hear your brother?” he whispers, and gets a small nod in return.

Still, he sits for a moment, more drained than before. It took something out of him, the strange memory water. He’s been thinking about Abner this whole time, remembering little things about him, but this was different. His insides feel raw and hollowed out, a carcass picked over by scavengers. His arm aches. He regrets using the pain to wake himself up, even if it worked. Blood drips onto the cavern floor, and vaguely he recognizes he must replace the bandage, but is too tired to move himself into doing so.

Klia’s book got wet, he thinks absently. Along with all their other things. They will have to work on drying them again, but not now. Now, they are closer. This is the only thing which spurs Eli to open his eyes and raise his head from the cavern wall.

“Are we in the correct tunnel?”

Another slight nod.

“We are going to get up and find your brother,” he tells her. “I will not let go of your hand, but I cannot carry you farther.”

For a moment, he believes she will not listen. Then, she uncurls from him, wiping at her face and squinting up the slight upward slope of the tunnel. For the first time, Eli realizes there is light here, ever so faint and barely real, but light nonetheless. He glimpses the outline of her face with it.

“We will dry our things as soon as we can,” he mumbles, dragging himself to his feet and rolling his shoulders, still letting Klia grab his hurting hand, leaving his good one free to reach for his sickle should he need it.

Taking a steadying breath, he checks his magic.

Elijah Jyce

the Reaper, the Unknown, the Elder

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43/97 Buds | 2/10 Roots | 2/5 Filaments

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Stems

Bladewielder (15), Minddreamer (3)

He squints at it, nodding to himself with grim satisfaction. It went up quite a bit comparatively. Eli wonders if it is the mental toll taken on him that he can feel deep in his soul, and the Order is recognizing it. Either way, hopefully by the time they find Thistle, he will have risen Minddreamer and gained something new, perhaps the same sight as Klia, though even with her he is learning it is imperfect.

Klia no longer tugs on his hand, her eyes returned to their normal color, but she walks alongside him easily when he starts up the slope, sniffling here and there.

Eli cannot help himself, “Did it take your dreams? Show you things?”

Even in the dark, he sees her nod.

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Still, he will not ask for specifics. “It took mine as well. Reminded me of things about your father.”

He feels when her eyes flicker up to take a glance at him.

“Long time ago,” he tells her, using his whisperings to fill the silence, to hopefully comfort her somehow. “Little moments, mostly, but some were larger. Your father was once your age, dear girl, and your grandmother and I were raising him. Did he tell you anything about your grandmother?”

She gives a shy nod. He suspected as much. Abner was devoted to her, even chasing the change in the magic partially for her sake, eventually…

It did not work out as planned, not even a little.

Eli hasn’t considered the specifics of it in a great long while. He has put it from his mind, as he has about the details of the conversations between him and Abner those last few days, or the remembrance of the other pains he endured. Absently, he tugs at his mutilated ear with the hand not currently tucked around both of Klia’s.

“You know that when your father began all of this, he was trying to do good things for the magic, make the world better, promote healing skills and other things which should be fostered.” Eli isn’t certain if he is speaking to Klia or attempting to remind himself. “And I was very proud of him. If he ever told you I wasn’t, he was mistaken.”

What can be going on in the girl’s mind? She gives no indication she heard him, but Eli suspects there is nothing she could give as a response. She is too young, anyway, to fully grasp Eli’s old ramblings. But if he continues to tell her such things, perhaps he will not feel so wrung out on the inside. It is a fool’s hope, but hope nonetheless.

“Would you like anything to eat?” he asks, and she shakes her head. He does not ask about water—they have both had their fill for entirely too long.

For a time, Eli is concerned they did indeed take an incorrect turn, and Klia is mistaken. They have not seen any sign of the plants which were indicated back at the circular hallway. Even if they are long gone, Eli doesn’t suspect the bathhouse was what the runes were referring to.

His boot steps on something too crunchy yet soft to be another cobblestone.

He glances down to find a vine and a fallen leaf. Automatically wary, he slows his steps. Just because these plants grow beneath the mountains does not mean they are not as deadly as those in the world above. And there is no day or night down here—it is eternally dark. Any sign of plant life could spell disaster after all of this.

“Careful,” he says gently, and his vision sharpens into the night-seeing eyes Klia shares with him. He gives her hand a grateful squeeze, even if it makes his arm ache.

Mosses cling to the walls in thicker and thicker blankets the farther in they go. Vines small and delicate as spider silk cling to the cracks in the carved hallway, speckled with few leaves. Even with the help of her sight, Eli cannot discern the color of them, just a mesh of dull green. It grows thicker and thicker the further they travel until Eli is concerned it will block their path. He slides his sickle from the makeshift sheath it sits in along the back of his bag, squeezing it reassuringly in his hand.

“We are close, aren’t we?” he whispers, and receives another nod.

He is nervous to ask or upset her, but says, “Is he…well?”

She gives him a strange look in the dark. She does not know. He wasn’t entirely certain how far their connection travels, but is concerned Thistle could be badly injured and neither of them would know any better without finding the boy. There is little to help him down here, and little civilization anywhere close. Eli thinks of the Unknowns, with their bloated skin and sickly petals dripping to the ground, of Marden back in the small town who used to trade with him, and finally succumbed to the mutation of the Order Eli didn’t know was possible. He takes in a deep breath and pushes aside some of the greenery with the tip of his sickle, not cutting, but not wishing to directly touch.

Something like a shadow lurks at the far end of the tunnel, in the faint light the plants seem to be giving off.

He stills, the familiar scent of soil reaching his nose. Klia takes a steadying breath as well, and he glances down. Her expression has turned far away, the same strange dark magic pooling in her eyes, wrapping the darkness of the tunnels about them. Perhaps their two magics are two halves of the same and will drag them back to one another.

Even the monster lurking in the dark does not dissuade the girl.

Before she does it, Eli can tell she means to bolt past him and catches her by the shoulders. Her eyes are dark as the deepest night, so strange when he is accustomed to her fairer features, and she doesn’t directly appear to be looking at him.

“Klia,” he says, shaking her slightly when she doesn’t respond. “Can you hear me?”

Thistle certainly seemed to hear when whatever magic he has overtook him. Last time this happened, the girl was angry at Eli for running down the dark tunnel, and she certainly knew him then. Despite the full darkness of her eyes, he knows she is not truly seeing him.

“Can you take me to Thistle?” he asks, fully intending to take advantage of this strange wave of magic. Her face scrunches at her brother’s name. It is nearly enough for him.

He doesn’t believe it’ll work, but he squeezes her hand, wondering if he will touch her magic past the seeing in the dark, and is rewarded with nothing. The shadows about them grow darker. Behind him, whatever monster was lurking has fled. She is still struggling to get past him, and Eli gives in. Grabbing her hand so he doesn’t immediately lose her in the dark, he runs as best as his aching body will take him, pushing through the wavering undergrowth, Klia dragging him along after so violently he’d certainly lose her in a moment.

A cry echoes through the tunnel, a too-sharp noise that has chills running up Eli’s skin before he even comprehends what he is hearing. Digging his heels in, he drags Klia to a stop, clamping his hand over her mouth. It isn’t necessary, as she goes utterly still as the stone about them when the scream echoes again.

Momentarily, Eli is terrified of the worst.

That the cries belong to Thistle.

That the monsters have done something to him now Eli is catching up.

But he remembers that sound, even as it reverberates along the stone walls a thousand times, slightly fainter the second time around.

They are catching up.