Cavelost

by Courtney Privett

  "Rin. Rin, look. Sprites!" Yana said. She climbed over Shan and grabbed my arm.

  "Yana, off!" Shan muttered. He rolled away and kept his eyes shut.

  "Are they harmful?" I asked.

  "No. They can bite, but no poison. Iron sprites. Give them metal for good luck." Yana dug a coin out of her pocket. She offered it to the sprite above me, who plucked it from her hand and zipped off to join the rest of the creatures.

  "Would they happen to know the way out of the caves?" Daelis asked. I hadn't realized he was awake.

  "Iron sprites is stupid things," Yana replied with a shrug. "They don't talk like people do. Don't listen to people. Sprites collect and hide things in little houses. They is funny sometimes and steal from Varaku. Varaku try to eat them, but they is spicy."

  "Well, even if it's futile, we need all the luck we can gather," I said. I retrieved a sewing kit from my rucksack, then walked to the fountain, where several sprites were gathered to lap at the churning water. I set a handful of fastener pins, buttons, and loose coins next to the sprites. Let's see, what else did I have? Oh yes, the thimble from my sewing kit. I'd never used the thing, so I might as well give it to them.

  The sprites squealed with glee as they snatched up the items. It took two of them to lift the heavy iron thimble. The sprites zoomed away down a nearby passageway. They returned moments later, empty-handed and emitting a shrill noise.

  "They is happy," Yana said. She clapped her hands together and grinned. "I think they not bite us. They will like us now."

  "I hope that means we can stay here for a little while longer," Daelis said. He tried to shift his position, but pain overtook him. I've broken a rib or four before and it's not a pleasant experience. The stiller one can remain, the better. No rolling over, no twisting of the torso, no coughing or laughing. Stay still, walk with a stiff spine, and wait.

  "Iron sprites don't bite when they like us," Yana said. "I think... I think offering means we stay more. Means we're friends. Means we're safe."

  "That's good to hear," I said. I rejoined my family on the floor. I tapped on the fingernails of Daelis's left hand. "Can you feel that?"

  "No," he replied. He closed his eyes and tilted his head away from me.

  I pressed on his forearm, then his bicep. "Anything here?"

  "Nothing." Collarbone. "Ouch. Feel that."

  "Can you move your fingers for me?"

  His hand remained still. "I'm trying. Anything happening?"

  "I'm sorry. No." I touched his chin and coaxed him to look at me. "That doesn't mean it will always be like this. Sometimes you just need to wait for the swelling to go down. If you start feeling pain, remember that it's a good sign."

  I apologize if you read this, Daelis. I don't think you'll ever have full function of that arm again. I'll be surprised if you regain any function at all. It will be okay. It's not your dominant hand and you'll be able to do most of the things you could before, except maybe open jars or shoot an arrow.

  "And if I don't?" he asked.

  "Varaku can cut off bad arms and grow them back!" Yana chirped.

  Daelis failed at restraining a laugh. The pain hit him quickly and he groaned. "I'm not a Varaku. Lucky for you, my dear, I'm just an elf."

  I rolled up a blanket and pressed it against Daelis's side. "Pressure helps with the rib pain. I'd tell you to lie on that side to minimize movement, but it's the same side as your shoulder. Give the nerves time to heal before you worry too much about your arm."

  "I don't think I'll be able to learn to play the lute. I always wanted to try."

  "Sweetie, if you want to learn an instrument, trumpet might be a better option," I said. I removed the medication bottles from my med kit. "I'm going to see what's in this For Swelling bottle. Might be helpful."

  "Going to give me more of the vanilla citrus stuff? Make me go back to sleep?" Daelis asked.

  "Yes," I replied.

  "Good. Let me stand up and walk around for a minute first. That little fountain gave me the most water I've had in a while and I'm feeling it."

  I helped him to his feet and he disappeared around a column grouping. I popped open the bottle marked For Swelling and peeked inside. The substance within wasn't a liquid like I expected. It contained thumbnail-sized balls of purple moss. I wished I had instructions for this. Was he supposed to eat it or did I need to make a poultice out if it? I sniffed the contents. It was vaguely reminiscent of coriander. I hoped it could be eaten. I poured a cup of water and measured a dose of the painkiller potion.

  "Yana, there are some of your glowing mushrooms over there," Daelis said as he returned from the far side of the cavern.

  "Orange or pink?" Yana asked.

  "Blue."

  "Best ones," Yana said. She skipped under a cluster of sprites in search of mushrooms.

  "Stay in sight, Yana," I said. I helped Daelis return to his makeshift bed, then retrieved the medication. "I think you need to eat this. I've got the painkiller and a fresh cup of water to wash it down with if it happens to be vile."

  "Looks like moss," Daelis said. He plucked it from my palm and popped it in his mouth. "Tastes okay. Kind of like minty grass. All right, give me the rest. Then you need to rest. Please. Remember that you're still healing, too."

  "I will, as soon as Yana returns. I could use a mushroom snack."

  Daelis closed his eyes and yawned. "Yes, eat the mushrooms, Rin. Keep our baby fed. Keep yourself rested."

  I'm trying.

  Day 36

  We're still in the fountain cavern. None of us feel an urge to stay here longer than required, but this pause in our escape is necessary. We've decided to give Daelis a chance for some measure of recovery and Yana more time to practice her new skill with her opal. She's becoming better at it with every attempt. Her face is becoming more relaxed as her proficiency increases and her need for concentration decreases. She is an intelligent child and I believe she will grow into an extraordinary adult. For now, I want her to learn and grow and experience the childhood joys she was never allowed as a Varaku slave.

  Yana cries in her sleep sometimes. She calls for her parents or her sister. I'm afraid that we're trying to replace the family that she loved and lost. I don't want her to forget them. We talk to her about them often, especially Shan. I've heard him tell her that death does not mean someone should be forgotten, especially someone who felt forgotten in life. I've always been proud of Shan, but I'm even more so now. He's caught in the Jarrah's horrible web, but he continues to react with strength and patient dignity. He may be screaming on the inside like I am, but he's forged a mask to appear outwardly calm. Or, he may have inherited his father's resilience.

  I'm beginning to suspect that Daelis is either an anomaly among elves or he has a non-elven ancestor. Jadeshire is a diverse city and I've been around elves my entire life. I've worked with and against many as an adult. I love Daelis, but I've never been fond of his kin. If given the choice between working with feral Fae and working with elves, I'd rather work with the feral Fae. Elves have a long history of conquer and rule, and that has made many of them arrogant and entitled, especially members of the ruling class. They look down upon other races, and even upon less fortunate elves. It's a common sentiment among aristocrats of all races, but elves are particularly notorious for it.

  Despite ages of holding power in the realms, elves are not a physically imposing people. They conquered through diplomacy and subterfuge, not force. Their complexions and features vary by origin, but overall they are slighter of build than humans, though their height range is comparable to ours, and they possess fragile constitutions. They aren't prone to disease, but they react poorly to pain. Northern elves are hardier than the southern varieties I'm more familiar with, but they still tend to shut down if maimed. Southern elves are not prolific, likely because miscarriages are frequent and many upper class elven women spend the majority of their pregnancies on bedrest. That is not a luxury middle and lower class elves can entertain, so their num
bers have been falling in recent generations.

  Damn it. All this makes me sound like a horrible, biased person. I don't mean to be. I have minor grievances with the traditions and moral imperatives of every race I've encountered, including my own. I try to treat all individuals with the same respect until they reveal that they are less or more worthy of it.

  Anyway, Daelis embodies all the strengths of the elves and doesn't seem to carry what I've always perceived as elven flaws. He's never acted like he's above me even though I'm a lowly merchant-class human. He doesn't treat Shan as something distasteful like every other Jadeshire elf we've encountered has. He's handled his injuries with grace and resolve instead of locking himself away in his mind. I don't know where this strength comes from, but I love him even more for it.

  "Rychel Foxfire," Daelis says. I hadn't realized he was awake and reading about my biases against his people. A flush rises into my face.

  "Damn it. Sorry, I shouldn't have written this. Does it upset you?" I ask.

  "No. Most of it is justified. Remember, if not for elven biases I would have married you before Shan was born. I got caught up in tradition and family loyalty instead." Daelis eases himself fully upright and rests his chin on my shoulder. "Anyway, Rychel Foxfire may have gifted me both my resilience and what my parents call my undesirable qualities."

  "Who is Rychel Foxfire?"

  "She was a half-orc who worked for my great-great-grandfather, Daerion Goldtree. They fell in love in secret and had a baby together. He passed as full-elven. Daerion legitimized him as Hanarath Goldtree. My great-grandfather. Daerion and Rychel had several other children, some who passed as elves and some who didn't, and all of whom were legitimized with the Goldtree name. The children who didn't pass were fully accepted by the Foxfire orcs, so I likely have cousins in that clan. Daerion and Rychel's relationship was a huge scandal in the Auran Desert at the time, since that's where the Goldtrees were living. Hanarath brought the family to Jadeshire, not only because the High King appointed him Duke of Jadeshire, High Lord of the Jade Realm, but also to escape from the supposedly outrageous claims that he was a quarter-orc. My grandfather, Hanalis, was born in Jadeshire, and so was my father. We haven't been around as long as most of the other highborn families, but no one seems to remember that. History slips the mind too easily, especially when there is money involved."

  "Wait... we're part orc?" Shan asks. He was gathering mushrooms while Yana practiced and I hadn't noticed him return.

  Daelis smiles at Shan, but his expression falls as he taps on the back of his left hand. I assume he still feels nothing. "Yes. It's a well-kept family secret that I was ashamed about until recently. I don't care anymore. I'm proud of my ancestry now. It's kept me alert and alive when other elves would have faded. I was always called strange by my parents and their friends. I used to try to be like them, but I have no interest in such nonsense any longer. I only want to be with my family. My real family, not the negligent parents who chose not to raise me."

  Yana sets her opal near the edge of the fountain. She takes a step back from it, then another. It continues to glow. She claps her hands together. "Look, Rin! I can stop touching!" The light fades and the opal goes dark. "Not much. Getting longer, right?"

  "I think you'll soon be able to hold the light for quite some time without touching it," I say. My extraordinary girl, I can't wait to see what you'll become once you're able to dance in the starlight.

  Day 36, part 2

  I dreamed of my past, of my mother. I was twelve years old, and our house was the same as the one I grew up in, but it was in Aes instead of Jadeshire. My sister Nora was getting ready to marry Tristan Kelra and I was hiding in a broom closet. My mother had made me a beautiful dress to wear for the wedding, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I hated the colors Nora had chosen, but more than that, I hated dresses. Yes, the dressmaker's daughter to this day hates wearing dresses. They're confining and hot. Too many layers, too much weight, not enough room to breathe. I've worn them on a few occasions as an adult, but I choose the looser, lighter designs preferred by desert dwellers rather than the prisons the Jadeshire women call fashionable.

  Anyway, back to the dream. I was hiding in the broom closet, wearing nothing but my excessive undergarments. My parents were dashing about the house, calling my name. I clung to a wooden horse that belonged to my little brother, Randel, and watched a spider crawl across my foot. My sister was afraid of spiders, but I wasn't. I was especially fond of the colorful little jumping spiders with the expressive eyes.

  Mom opened the door and let in the violet glow of Aes. "Get out of there and get dressed, Katrin. This day belongs to your sister, not to you," she said, scowling. She dragged me out of the closet. "Now look what you've done. Your bloomers are dusty. I spent all that time getting those ratty curls under control and now you've got spiderwebs in your hair."

  Mom tossed me into the kitchen and the dress flew off the table and onto me. Mom tightened the laces and shoved me out the door. "Go sit with your brothers."

  The wedding was in our yard. I didn't notice the guests until I was uncomfortably seated between stiff-backed Elsin and slouching Randel, who had a finger shoved deep in his nose. At ten, he was too old for such unabashed rudeness, but he continued to do it to irritate the rest of us.

  Now the dream began to deviate from what really happened. I turned around to watch Nora's approach and screamed. A line of Jarrah stood behind the back row of chairs. The guests on one side of the aisle were Hycinth and on the other side were Varaku. Nora walked over the bodies of tortured Uldru and each one she stepped on transformed into Yana. Lightning crackled across the cavern ceiling. I turned my attention to the dais. Tristan coughed and turned into a growing cave wolf. The vicar became a salamander with an emaciated Uldru gnawing at his legs. Thunder shook Aes and banners unfurled from the stalactites. Each one displayed the design of a pendant I wore, each one a tribute to the long-dead I left behind. A larger banner dropped directly behind the vicar. I didn't recognize the crest. White field with a black-bordered circle. Curved along the lower half of the circle were three black storm-blown waves. A trio of yellow stars sat above the waves.

  Behind me, the Jarrah shrieked in unison. "Eat. Eat. Eat." The Varaku snarled and descended upon the Hycinth. Nora kissed wolf-Tristan, who promptly gobbled her up while the skeletal Uldru finished devouring the vicar.

  I woke up screaming. Shan dashed over from the fountain and embraced me.

  "Mom, it's okay," he said. He kissed my cheeks and squeezed me tighter. "Just a nightmare. Whatever it was, it wasn't real."

  I stroked his cheek with my knuckles. "Sleep in one nightmare and wake in another." My breathing slowed to near-normal. "Where are Daelis and Yana?"

  "Finding mushrooms, giving pins to sprites. They're fine."

  "Good. Hand me my journal. I need to draw something before I forget it."

  I took the journal from Shan and sketched the crest from the white banner.

  "Did you see that in your nightmare?" he asked. He rubbed the sides of his nose and exhaled forcefully.

  "Yes. Do you know what it is?" I rotated the journal so he could see it better.

  Shan's eyes darted in the direction of Yana's gleeful giggle. "I do. I saw it when I was trying to figure out where I came from. That's the Nightshadow family's crest. Stars above an inverted dragon wing. Dad's mother is a Nightshadow. They're desert elves from the Redcairn Mountains."

  "A wing? I thought it was waves. I'm not sure why it was in a nightmare about Nora's wedding turning into a Varaku buffet." I rotated the journal so the crest was upright for me. "I probably... I probably just remembered it from being in your father's house before you were born. I'm sure it was displayed there somewhere."

  "I doubt it. He's never really been on friendly terms with his mother, so it would be weird if he kept something like that out where he would see it regularly." Shan scratched the back of his neck. He buzzed his lips, then said, "You know, I bet you saw i
t during one of the heritage festivals in Jadeshire. All of the aristocrats hang their banners in the city center so everyone else has to walk underneath them to get anywhere. That's where the highborn like us—below them."

  "Daelis plans on legitimizing you as a Goldtree, you know? You'll be one of those highborn soon, so long as Daelon doesn't disown Daelis when he finds out about us."

  "I may become a highborn in name, but I'll never be like them. I'll always be the bookish, half-blood bastard from Hawthorn Heights." Shan pours a cup of water and hands it to me. "I'll never look down on anyone because their lineage is different from my own."

  "I'd be saddened if you stopped finding value in everyone. You'd become someone other than my Shan if you did," I said. I drank the water in one long draw and lowered my pen to the journal page. "I'm going to write down this dream now, before I forget it. Why don't you go ask your father if he'll be ready to leave this cavern after our next round of sleep. I'm getting too restless to stay much longer."

  Day 37

  I miss music. There is a certain rhythm to the deep—a scuttle of tiny arthropod feet, a steady stalactite drip, the grind of the shifting rock—but the music of the inner world doesn't bring same comfort as the music made by people. I want to hear the deep, droning bass of a dwarven chant, a halfing rondeau, an orcan drinking song, even an elven funeral threnody, anything melodic created for the sole purpose of being heard and enjoyed. I've always loved music, but I'm a mediocre musician. I can sing reasonably well, especially after a pint or two, but my skills on anything other than a simple recorder are abysmal. My sons are far more adept than I am. Shan plays the zither and Tessen plays the viol. They like to play in front of the fireplace on cold winter nights and soothe me to sleep.

  It's too quiet down here, and it's maddening. I never want to hear another worn shoe sole scuff across stone. I don't want to hear an echo or a relentless water drip. I want to hear the wind. I want my voice to sweep away on an eddy instead of slam me in the face over and over and over. I want to hear the crackle of a fireplace, the clip-clop of horse hooves on cobblestone, the chirping of birds. I want to hear Tessen sing that ridiculous song he couldn't get out his head for weeks. What was it called? "Sorry for…" no, that's not right. Ah yes, "I Apologize for the Memories." Irritating song, but I'll gladly hear it again if it means I'm listening to Tessen's voice.