by J. M. Lee
“That was an accident. It just came out like that.”
“I didn’t know you had it in you. I liked it. Someone had to say what we were all thinking.”
“I would rather she had given us some answers, or some hope. Or something. Anything.”
“She did give us something—a reason to make our own way. And that book. You two seem inseparable! I was starting to get jealous.”
“Who else was I supposed to spend time with while you and Gurjin were such beans on a string?”
It was half a joke, but Naia responded only to the half that wasn’t for laughs.
“Kylan! Don’t say that. If I had to pick between traveling with only one of you two, it would be the one who’s here right now.”
“Only because you’re worried I might need protecting,” Kylan said. Again, it was partly a tease, but it was rooted in truth, however small. “Or boat rowing.”
“No,” Naia said. “Because Gurjin and I always see things the same way. If the two of us always traveled together, we would never make it. When I’m with you, I have someone looking out for me from a different perspective. That’s important to me.”
“All right. I’ll believe you.”
“Promise?”
He was about to agree when Tavra called to them. They had finally reached the place where the beach ended, abruptly stopped by the cliffs. The lake’s waves sloshed against the rock in the cold shadow of the cliff. Bats and whistling cave birds swooped in and out of the millions of holes that dotted the cliffside. At water level, Kylan could see Gelfling-size cave mouths. The lake seeped into them in narrow ravines, quickly lost in the thick darkness that filled the mountainside.
Tavra pointed to a place on the cliff above the nearest cave. Hidden under the drooping ferns and creeping water-ivies was a dream-etched Gelfling symbol. The animal pictograph was ancient, eroded, but unmistakable—a flap-winged hollerbat, sigil of the Grottan Gelfling clan.
CHAPTER 14
Though the nearest cave entrance was in plain sight, reaching it was still a challenge. The tunnels were made for boat access, from the looks of them—difficult to access by foot, with openings more horizontal than vertical. Yet there was a shallow ledge along the cliff that was still wide enough for a Gelfling to walk, and they followed it along the wall of rock until they could duck into the tunnel. Inside, cloaked in cool shadows, the ceiling was so low they had to crawl to keep from bumping their heads on dripping stalactites. It was a natural canal, low enough that they could have sat in a boat and rowed in comfortably.
But they didn’t have a boat, and so they had to crawl along the narrow shelves on either side of the waterway. The lake waves sloshed all around them, sometimes enough that Kylan’s hands and knees were completely submerged. At one point, a rogue wave washed so high over them that he was drenched up to his stomach, and he considered simply rolling into the waterway and swimming rather than continue scrabbling along the wet, slime-covered rocks.
When the book had mentioned the underwater tunnels, Kylan had not taken much note. Now, as he followed Naia on all fours, feeling the ceiling and walls close around them, he felt an unbidden tremor of panic low in his belly. He had never been in a space so enclosed, and was surprised at how afraid it made him, even though in his higher mind he knew he was in no real danger. It didn’t matter either way, really. It was too late to back out now, and even if it wasn’t, if he did, there would be no hope of finding whether Gyr’s magic firca existed or not.
The uncomfortable journey was rewarded before too long. The tunnel opened, and the walkway on either side of the canal became tall enough for them to stand. Tavra muttered under her breath as she straightened and brushed dirt and algae from her wings, getting a smirk from Naia, who was perfectly at home in the mud and wet.
They walked down a long twisting tunnel. Through the center was the waterway, lit from below by glowing algae and schools of crawling freshwater anemones, each patterned in different-colored stripes and dots of light. The water was clear and deep, and Kylan decided he had been right not to try to swim. Who knew what kind of hungry creatures lived down in the pitch-dark ravine below.
The lights from the lake critters were bright enough to illuminate most of the tunnel, though the dim lighting would take some getting used to. Already, the bright daylight beyond the cave was nearly gone, as if they had entered another world that existed in permanent night.
“These are the Grottan caves, all right,” Naia said. “Look, more writing.”
On the walls, glittering from mineral deposits, were dream-etchings. More pictographs, but some words, too. Kylan traced them with his fingers, wondering whether these could be some of the dream-etchings left by Gyr so many ages ago.
“May all light not true be swallowed by darkness,” he read out loud. “How ominous. It’s written like a blessing, but I can’t help but feel we’ve been warned.”
Tavra gave the writing no attention, though she was literate. Apparently skill had no correlation with interest.
“Move on. We can travel faster on foot, at least.”
Though the walkway was wider, the path was by no means easy. Loose rocks were constantly moving underfoot, slippery and sharp and hard to see in the dark. Kylan thought he heard whispers, once or twice, but even if they were being watched by someone, there would be no way to know. Sometimes, when his ear was close to the rock wall, he heard a faint knocking and tapping, as if someone were drumming their finger against a distant part of the cave.
As they walked farther and farther from the outside world, the dream-etchings became more common, though often with words and characters Kylan didn’t recognize. Soon the cave walls were covered in the etchings top to bottom, more full than the pages of his book. He and Naia marveled at the writing, and he pointed out some of the easier-to-read pictographs to her. Soon she started to recognize them: the symbols for the three suns and three moons; the curled, tripart character for Thra.
“Heart of Thra,” Kylan read. “Closer we, the Grottan Clan, to the Heart of Thra than . . . any other . . . The Castle of the Crystal is days west. They must mean it figuratively.”
“Every Gelfling clan believes they are closest to Thra,” Tavra said. “And yet Gelfling are the only creatures on this planet who make a contest of it. It’s absurd.”
Kylan tried to smooth over the tension.
“We may have different founding maudra,” he said, “but we’re all Gelfling. Surely none of us are more intimate with Thra than the others.”
Tavra snorted.
“Perhaps a consensus can be reached among the Gelfling clans, but that leaves many other creatures out of the equation. Being a favorite of Aughra affords one many luxuries, even if they might not be viewed that way. It is the definition of a spoiled child.”
Naia rolled her eyes, though it was at Tavra’s back, and the Silverling didn’t see it. Kylan didn’t know exactly what Tavra was getting at, but he let it alone. They were in close confines already, and the cramped space didn’t need to be filled by more bickering. Silence seemed to be the best way to put out the fire, so silence it was.
The three walked on quietly, listening to the drip-dripping and drop-dropping of cave water and the faint rumble of some far-off underground river. Sometimes the air would warm, then cool, as if they were passing in and out of the shadows of trees in an open, sunny field. More likely, Kylan thought, there were springs flowing through the earth, heating the rock. In the places where it was warmer, thick blue moss grew in spongy balls, sprinkled with translucent, glowing sprouts. Where it was cooler, crawlies snaked in and out of the shadows, armored worms with hundreds of jointed legs and spiraled antennae, snacking on the stacks of shingled lichen that crowded between rock joints.
The caves seemed infinite, as if they filled all of Thra. Maybe they did. It was so different from the open plains and light forest of the Spriton land. Even the Dark Wood and the
highlands were familiar, in a way, but the caves were as alien to Kylan as the surface of the Great Sun or the bottom of the ocean. He wondered whether this foreign uneasiness was how Naia had felt when she had first left the Swamp of Sog, setting foot on dry land for the first time in her life. Yet she had come through the Spriton plains and more, all the way to the Castle of the Crystal. Kylan remembered this and willed himself to be just as bold.
Outsider . . .
A gust of wind broke the still air, and Kylan thought he heard a voice, breathy like an exhale, but when the breeze passed, it left only the scent of fresh water and earth. Ahead was a wall, and he thought the tunnel had ended. Then the blockage wavered in another draft of fresh-smelling air, and he realized it was not a wall but a blanket of moss, growing from the ceiling of the tunnel all the way down, where its tips swayed in the surface of the waterway. It formed some kind of doorway, or a curtain, and the breeze that filtered through gave him hope that they had reached something magnificent that lay just on the other side.
Naia touched the curtain of moss first. It was thick, swallowing her arm as she reached in. Unlike the strangling finger-vines, this moss was gentle, some furry fronds curling away from the Drenchen girl to let her pass. Without hesitation or looking back, Naia stepped through, and Kylan and Tavra followed soon after. It took three steps to pass fully through the soft tendrils, and Kylan gasped when he reached the other side.
The waterway split where they stood, snaking to the left and the right through the basin of an open cavern that filled the space beyond the tunnel. The dizzying ceiling soared high above into what must have been the body of the mountains. Light streamed down in columns from holes far above, just enough to illuminate the place while leaving most of it in mystery.
“It’s beautiful,” Kylan whispered. The word didn’t do the ghostly place justice, but it was a start.
“It’s empty,” Tavra added, as if it couldn’t be both. “And dangerous. Who knows what might live in these caves. It smells of death. Let’s find the firca and get out of here.”
Naia stepped forward to lead but stopped when a pebble skipped down from one of the walkways above. Kylan looked up and saw nothing, but then he heard them. Whispers, all around them, blending into one another. They grew louder, and he made out words:
Outsider. Daylighter. Silverling.
“Ghosts?” he squeaked, but Naia was less superstitious and simply asked, “Is someone there?”
Is someone there? came the whispers. Or were they echoes? There . . . Someone is there . . . She wants to know if someone is there . . . If someone is where?
“Someone is here.”
The soft, eerie voice came from right behind them, and Kylan whirled, stumbling back into Naia. Perched above the waterway entrance they’d just passed through was a hooded figure, so close that his dangling bare feet nearly touched the top of Tavra’s head before she jumped away. The Gelfling-like figure leaned forward to rest his chin on his hands, and the scant light touched his face. Where his eyes should be, Kylan saw only deep black pits.
A chill ran up his arms and neck when the whisper came again:
“What’s so important it’s brought daylighters all the way to the Caves of Grot?”
CHAPTER 15
“Shadowling,” Tavra growled.
“Silverling,” the strange Gelfling replied, with a casual but equal distaste. He hopped down, his sparkling black cloak ballooning around him. He landed silently and effortlessly among the sharp rocks and pebbles that littered the walkway.
Pulling back his hood, his skin was pale like moonlight, with silky silver hair like Tavra’s, shaved on one side and falling to his shoulder on the other. Had Kylan seen him aboveground, he might have mistaken him for a Vapra—except for his eyes. With his face hidden by the shadow of his hood, Kylan had at first thought he had no eyes at all. Now he could see two, large and black, with no whites in them. It was like looking into one of the inky ponds that dappled the cave’s basin floor.
He had to be Gelfling, based on the shape of his face and body, but he held himself differently. Like a river plant, Kylan thought, or maybe even an eel or fish, eerily graceful as he gazed down at them with an unreadable expression. His movements were as fluid as if he were underwater, slow and seamless.
The whispers hushed. The Grottan boy—for that’s what he must have been—took his time, turning his dark gaze from one of them to the other. Tavra gripped the hilt of her sword, though Kylan hoped she wouldn’t draw it. If they were headed toward a conflict, he didn’t want them to be the ones to start it.
Naia understood this, at least, and held her empty hands away from her knife. “We’re here in peace. We’re looking for something. We need your help. I’m Naia, from Sog, and this is Kylan of the Spriton. That’s . . . Tavra.”
She left out Tavra’s title, which Kylan thought wise. He was not at ease with the way they were being inspected, but the Grottan’s animosity toward the Vapra seemed particularly thick. Knowing that Tavra was not only a Vapra but also the All-Maudra’s daughter might be too much, and much too soon.
Naia’s introduction was met with an unblinking stare. Just when Kylan thought no reply was coming, the boy headed up one of the stairways that ribbed the interior wall of the cavern.
“Well, come on, then.”
The voices in the cave had settled into curious murmurs as they followed their guide up the basin, weaving along the paths that rose above the still water. The stone walkways stretched between tunnels that burrowed deeper into the mountain, their undersides overgrown with moss and luminescent flowers. Kylan jumped when a school of leather-winged hollerbats burst from one roost to another, interrupting the quiet with their whistling screeches before going silent again.
Kylan looked up as they passed through the center of the cavern, losing count of the tunnel entrances and walkways. Now that the silence had been broken, he saw silhouettes of other Grottan Gelfling stepping out of the shadows, gathering in groups of twos and threes on the ledges to watch them pass. They were all ghostly, clothed in black cloaks like their guide. Only their faces, hands, and bare feet showed, slipping in and out of the shadows like starlight.
“This really is the home of the Grottan clan, then?” Naia asked their guide. “The Caves of Grot?”
“Indeed. Though we call it by its birth name: Domrak.”
Kylan rolled the word in his mind, picking it apart. The meaning was there, like pips in a fruit.
“Place-in-Shadows?” he asked.
Their guide looked back with raised brows over his black eyes. Kylan told himself the eeriness of the expression was a trick of his imagination, but the way their guide had no pupils made it difficult to see which direction he was looking. Instead, it seemed he gazed at everything at once.
“A fair translation in the common tongue. Others have called it the Cave of Obscurity. Land-in-Darkness. Hole in Ground. Either way, grot means crypt. Though in truth, nothing has died here.”
They could not argue with that. Plant and animal life was all around them, just as plentiful in the dark as it was above in the light. Voices of children echoed from deep inside the caves, laughing. The word Domrak did not just mean place, but home.
They followed the carved stairway on a long spiraling ascent. Like every other surface in the cavern, it was textured with dense dream-etchings. It was hard to make out all the shapes and letters in the dim, mixed with pictographs and symbols too eroded by time to read. Kylan caught only pieces of the countless stories inscribed—some about the cavern itself, others about Thra. Yet others described creature life, the passing of seasons, and the medicinal qualities of certain mushrooms.
Their guide turned when the stairs met a tunnel opening larger than the others. The triangular archway was carved to look like a colony of hollerbats, round bodies hanging by the feet, some with wings folded and others outstretched. The intricate
carving continued along the wall and ceiling of the tunnel, lit by glowing moss that grew like fur on the stone creatures. The ground cover and other plants thickened until they completely blocked the end of the tunnel in a mass of vines and ferns. There, Kylan waited with the others while the Grottan boy stepped through, enveloped in the plants.
“Maudra Argot? Visitors . . . yes, from above . . .”
A quiet voice replied, too masked by the foliage at the entrance to be understood. After a moment, the vines rustled, and the boy poked his head out.
“She says you two can enter. The Silverling stays here.”
Tavra snorted through her nose, and Kylan wished she hadn’t. If they wanted to gain the trust and alliance of every clan, they would have to be respectful, even if they did not get the same respect in return. Shouldn’t a daughter of the All-Maudra know better diplomacy? Huffing, she turned away and crossed her arms.
“I have no interest in paying respects to a Shadowling bat, anyway,” she said, turning her nose up. “Be quick about it.”
“Don’t start any fights,” Kylan said. “Please.”
Kylan closed his eyes to keep from being poked by the leaves and tendrils as he passed through them. Though they were soft, there were so many and they grew so densely that by the time he finally exited, he was covered in leaves and spores. Naia was in the same condition, and picked a piece of greenery out of her mouth.
The Grottan maudra’s chamber was large enough for a dozen Gelfling to stand in, the walls smoothed by carvers so that it hardly resembled the rest of the rocky, jagged caves. The smoothing exposed thick crystal veins, which cut through the seamless wall like still lightning. The veins filled the room with a gentle light, glowing more brightly where writing was etched in narrow curving shapes. The crystal was still clear and pure, the way it was meant to be.
Seated on the stone floor, cross-legged, was an old Gelfling woman. Her wings were sheer, almost completely transparent, draped out behind her like a crystalline pool. Her eyes were black, like all the Grottan, but bore the mark of time. Her kind, wrinkled face might have seen more than one ninet—if the greater seasons even affected the Grottan clan, so deep in the earth.
