Devouring Darkness

by Bradley Counter

It’s been almost a week since anyone has been taken. Not a single slave has died since she appeared.

  Garen had only just begun digging for the day, but his thoughts were already drifting to her. She was like a fantasy of beauty and grace given physical form. Her alluring appearance seemed to be matched only by the enigmatic mystery that shrouded her. He knew next-to-nothing about her and yet his thoughts were constantly drawn back to her.

  Cassandra.

  Everyone seemed to fear her. The other slaves cowered away from her as if she were some horrible monster. The demidemons did the same as if they were being emasculated by merely standing near her.

  Garen didn’t understand their fear. He found her entirely alluring, not threatening, so while everyone else was trying to avoid her, he was wholly focused on her. Beautiful, intelligent, and mysterious, he could hardly stop thinking about her. For some reason he didn’t know, she had chosen to talk to him that first day, but they hadn’t spoken since.

  Garen had worked up the courage to approach her several times since their initial encounter, but she had moved away each time, pretending not to notice him. He looked over at her from time to time and occasionally caught her turning away as if she, too, had been watching him.

  What's going on? I should be focused on trying to escape, not on some woman I’ve only met once. Why am I acting like some love-struck teenager?

  The only thing that seemed to get Garen’s mind off of Cassandra was a young boy that had come in with the last group of slaves. He had arrived two days before with an elderly man and two middle-aged women, none of whom were apparently related to the boy. He was regarded by the slaves in the same cold, distant manner as any other slave.

  The boy appeared to be only eight years old, and already his life had been reduced to such cruelty. Immediately, the boy became an intense source of determination for Garen; determination to free them all from the demonic prison in which they were all chained by fear.

  As if sensing his impact on Garen, the boy clung to him and followed him everywhere in the mine. For two days, the boy had eaten, slept, and worked beside him. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the boy struggled with the makeshift pick. It was difficult to watch, but Garen knew that helping him would likely only get them both killed. Despite the fact that it had been a week since anyone had been taken, Garen didn’t think it was worth gambling both of their lives on.

  Every opportunity to help the boy seemed trivial, but Garen did what he could. He helped make sure that the boy was able to get enough food, shoving some of the larger slaves aside to make room for the small child. It was still just the same cold, greasy, sludge, but at least the boy was able to eat his fill rather than starve. He also kept an open space beside him for the child to sleep, but it was only a small space on a cold, stone floor. Still, he tried to help and the boy seemed to like the affection.

  He caught the boy’s attention and smiled at him, but the boy just stared blankly at him for a moment and then went back to work. The boy never smiled. It was as if a part of him was missing, and Garen didn’t know how to help him get it back. The boy hardly ever showed any emotion; he simply ate, slept, and worked in a sad, unending cycle.

  Garen tried not to think too hard about the boy’s mysterious past, but it was difficult. Obvious questions popped into his mind unbidden that he knew would likely never be answered.

  Who is this boy? Where does he come from? Where are his parents?

  He knew such questions served no purpose. The only thing that would come from thinking about them was a growing sadness he felt toward the young boy. He tried to focus on something else to avoid becoming too melancholy only to end up thinking once more about Cassandra.

  Cassandra and the boy; every time I try to force my thoughts away from one they just end up at the other. I’m going to drive myself crazy if I keep this up much longer.

  A sudden exclamation from the boy caught his attention and he turned to see what had happened. The boy stood before a hole that he'd opened in the rock wall at the front of the tunnel. The jagged opening in the rock was roughly the size of Garen's head and had been driven straight into a hollow pocket in the otherwise solid black stone. A bright white-gold light spilled out of the hole and covered the slaves in brilliant rays.

  Several other slaves had begun crowding around the boy to see what was causing the brilliant light. Though he was standing right next to the boy, the sudden surge of bodies threatened to separate them. Pushing his way through the other slaves, Garen moved over to the boy and turned to inspect the hole.

  He lowered his face to the hole and after a few moments of near blindness his eyes began to adjust to the bright light. What he saw within the wall was breathtaking: a cluster of glowstones that formed a natural tunnel big enough to walk through. Floor, walls, and ceiling for a length of nearly 15 feet were a brilliant mass of light. He'd never witnessed anything even remotely close to the sheer scale of the glowstone cluster before him in all of the time that he'd spent digging in the tunnel.

  This is incredible; I'd have never guessed that glowstones could form something like this.

  He moved the boy back and went to work with renewed vigor, viciously hammering at the rock with his crude iron pick. Bits and pieces chipped away from the ever widening hole. Other slaves took up their picks and joined in. In minutes, they had widened the hole enough to walk through.

  No one made a move to enter the glowstone tunnel. The slaves all stood staring at it as if it were the most amazing thing that they'd ever seen. Shaking his head at them, Garen slowly moved forward and stepped into the opening. Though the glowstones formed a natural tunnel, the walkway through it was incredibly narrow. He had to turn sideways and move carefully to avoid the razor-sharp stones jutting out at him to either side.

  Once he reached the end of the short glowstone tunnel, he squinted and looked at the wall before him. Beyond the glowstones, the wall once again became the silver and gold veined black stone that the rest of the tunnel was made of, but the wall was different: it wasn't solid. The stones appeared loose and broken as if a tunnel had already existed there and had collapsed at some point. Garen glanced down and knew that he was right; the floor beneath the broken stones was smooth, even, and quite obviously not natural.

  We’ve found it. We’ve found Gormum’s fortress.

  The rest of the day was spent excavating the immense glowstones and widening the tunnel as well as removing the fallen rocks from the stone path. The diggers were working so fast that Garen felt sorry for the rest of the slaves. Those who weren't digging at the front had to carry all of the broken rocks back up and out of the tunnel.

  After hours of removing rock from the area with the smooth stone floor it became clear that no amount of vigorous labor would clear out all of the debris in a single day. Tired and weary, the slaves made their way back up the sloping tunnel to their cells. Oddly enough they had not been told to stop by any of the demidemons and yet none stepped forward to punish them for stopping.

  There scarcely seemed to be any of the demidemons around. A few of them still waited by the cell to take their glowstones and the feeding trough was always full, but they rarely followed the slaves down into the tunnel anymore.

  That’s fine by me. I’m tired of feeling their eyes on me while I work and wondering if I’ll be the next person dragged into the darkness.

  He placed his glowstone in the bucket, filed into the cell with the others, and made his way to the daily meal. The boy was right on his heels and they ate side by side in the darkness. After they'd finished eating, Garen found space big enough for both of them and they lay down for some well-earned rest.

  Drenched in sweat, filthy with dirt, still hungry and thirsty, and aching with pain, Garen lay on his back and stared up into the darkness. The boy was already snoring softly beside him with his head nestled on Garen’s arm. Garen smiled affectionately and a fierce wave of protectiveness seized him. He wished for the hundredth time that he had a blanket
to throw across the boy to keep him warm.

  “You should have a name,” he said softly, knowing that the boy was already asleep. “I think I’ll call you Cero, after my younger brother. He was about your age the last time I saw him, though he didn’t seem to like me as well as you do.”

  He paused for a minute as he thought about his brother for the first time in years. He frowned briefly and decided that he had enough problems in the present without digging up ones from the past. His expression softened and he turned his head toward the soft sound of Cero’s breathing.

  “I’ll get you out of this place if it kills me.”

  Now that we’ve found Gormum’s fortress it’s only a matter of time before the throne room is discovered. I need to be the one that finds it; no one else understands the importance of this dig. The slaves that were born here in The Nightlands don’t know what The World of Light is like or how many innocent people will be killed if another demon gains Gormum’s power.

  If I can’t find some way to use the Gallovine to save everyone here, then I need to destroy it before this demon, Babossa, can get it. If he gains that much power on top of what he already has, he'd be the greatest threat that The World of Light has ever known. I must keep it from him at all costs!