Descent Into Underearth

by Susan Bianculli

  It felt like I had hardly closed my eyes when I heard Ragar growl loudly and delightedly with overtones of menace, “Awake! Awake and fight!”

  I scrambled blearily out of my bedroll and to my feet with the others, grabbing my sword by sheer reflex. I shook my head to clear the brain fog away. With Ragar being on watch, that meant it was somewhere before midnight. Heather and I almost instinctively went back-to-back, since the last time we had done that back in the fight in Bascom’s tower it’d worked out pretty well for us. Arghen and Auraus took up stances to either side of us—Arghen with his personal black war spear chased with silver, and Auraus with hands raised, ready to cast a spell. We looked for Ragar and saw the mountain-cat-elf standing on the other side of the fire, his longsword at the ready, as a quad of four of Morsca’s guards approached our group from up the road. Two of them were grey-green Goblins, one was a green-grey Miscere Ogre, and the last was a tan-skinned Troll. The Troll wore the quad leader breastplate.

  An idea popped into my head. I said to Heather, “Wait here.”

  “Where are you going?” she hissed.

  “I’m going to see if I can prevent this fight.”

  “What?! Are you crazy? Get back here! They look like they’d kill you outright!”

  I didn’t answer her as I went to stand beside Ragar, who was growling. The quad walked in a measured pace towards us, scowling. If their approach was supposed to strike fear into me, it was doing a good job.

  I purposefully pointed my sword towards the ground, cleared my throat and said, “In the name of Lord Bascom, stay your weapons!”

  Ragar whipped his head around in shock towards me. “What?”

  I held up a hand to shush him because my words had had the desired effect: the quad stopped advancing, looks of confusion on their faces replacing the original glares.

  “Who are you to speak of Lord Bascom?” the Troll demanded.

  I said, “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?” he replied with suspicion in his voice.

  “The keep has fallen, the valley has surrendered to outside forces, and Bascom and Morsca are dead. The Under-elves have gone away and won’t be coming back to trade anymore. You’re now free to do whatever you want. You might want to …”

  But that was as far as I got. Every member of the quad roared angrily and charged us, no longer as much a unit as before. Now they were just individuals with the same desire—to kill us.

  “Guys, get up here!” I yelled to the three in back of me.

  Ragar gave a delighted yell, charged forward, and met the quad head on just as Arghen and Auraus reached us. I didn’t see Heather join in, but I didn’t have time to worry about her because the grey-green Goblin ran at me with her sword held out as if she was going to skewer me like a Turkish shish kebab. I twisted out of the way, bringing up my own sword in reflex and swinging it so that it would slice her face as she ran by. But she was a better fighter than that to allow that to happen. Her point followed me and glanced off my chain armor before sliding along my ribs. That, however, put her right in reach of my saber, and I tried to stab her through the neck. I hit right above her breastplate, but my aim wasn’t true. She dropped to one knee and cocked her head to the left so that I only sliced her jawline a little. I leapt instinctively backwards and brought my sword around to block the attack I knew was coming, and I was rewarded with a ‘clang’ as my sword forced hers to slide up mine at an angle.

  Unluckily, as I leapt backwards I felt a tingle of magic being cast—from Auraus, no doubt. Distracted by it I landed on a loose stone, which shot out from under my foot and made me sit down hard. The Goblin screeched a victory cry and slammed her blade down at me. I raised mine to block it, but the guard’s sword was intercepted by Heather. She had leapt to my defense with a shriek and a wild look on her tan face that was equal parts terrified and angry. With wild swings Heather beat the surprised Goblin back a few steps, and then almost accidentally ran her saber through the guard’s throat.

  “Thanks!” I said as I scrambled to my feet to look around.

  But, once again, the others had already finished dealing with their fights, and their opponents lay dead upon the ground. Heather stood still as a statue and stared at the dead Goblin at her feet. I knew from my own first time killing that Redcap when I first crossed to this world what she was likely feeling just then. I went over to put a friendly hand on her shoulder.

  “No, don’t touch me,” she whispered, jerking her shoulder out from under my hand.

  I hesitated, and then lowered my arm. I was briefly envious that she wasn’t bent over and dry heaving like I had done after my Redcap fight.

  “Heather, I think I know what you’re going through right now. I went through it myself when I first came here. It will be better if you talk.”

  I took a step back as she turned and looked at me with emptiness in her dark eyes. “I took a life.”

  “Yeah,” I acknowledged her words.

  I didn’t bring up the fact that she probably had killed more than this one from the ‘carpet bombing’ that she’d done in the keep battle the other day, because I somehow knew that would just make it worse. Doing it intentionally yourself was very different than throwing things down on top of others from a flying carpet where you don’t stay to see the aftermath.

  “Heather, it’s hard the first couple of times you get up close and personal with a sword and an enemy. It’s a very different use for our swords than what we learned in class at the Academy,” I started with sympathy in my voice.

  “How do you deal with it, Lise? You seem to have no problem with killing innocent lives,” she interrupted listlessly.

  That stung me. “Hey! First of all, they’re not innocent. Every battle I’ve been in, I was attacked first. And these guys attacked us on purpose. You saw me try to get them to leave us alone! Second of all,” I sighed, “you don’t really get over it. Jason gave me a psychological tactic to try a little while ago: to pretend that I am in a videogame to help give myself some needed distance when I’m fighting. I used it for a while until I didn’t need it so much anymore because I’d grown to mostly accept the way of life over here. You might want to give it a try. But you should know I have a little pocket in my heart that stores the memories of all the ones I’ve killed myself. I remember each and every one, every night.”

  Heather nodded dully as Auraus came over to us, her grey eyes wide with concern. The Wind-rider turned me around to face her, holding my two shoulders out at arms’ length.

  “Lise, that is not healthy! You do what you must and are not cruel in its execution. There is no need to do what you have said you do. Release the memories, and let them go.”

  I shook my head, wincing a little at the word ‘execution’. She didn’t mean it the way I took it.

  “Auraus, I don’t think you can understand. I don’t think any of you can understand. To you, violence is kind of a way of life. In many ways your way of life is a lot more straightforward than Heather’s and Jason’s and mine. In my world, killing is something only people in the military do on the battlefield or criminals do during crimes. Here, it seems to be a more common way to solve your problems. To a human, killing is generally to be avoided.”

  The Wind-rider looked shocked. “Lise, is that how you view our world?”

  I smiled wryly at her. “Auraus, I’m only fifteen years old. I’d had my birthday only days before falling through that mist gate. Before coming to this world I had never even seen a dead body in real life, never mind help create one. And I’ve helped create lots more than just one in the past few weeks–umm, past few moon phases. I may have talked tough some days ago, but this is how I really feel.”

  The Wind-rider pulled me close in for a hug, wrapping her white and gold wings about me as I laid my head down on her shoulder. Being hugged by her helped relax the tension I’d always seemed to have in my shoulders since entering the magical world. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I sternly told myself not to cry an
d managed to hold them in.

  Auraus said softly in my ear, “Lise, Lise, I am so sorry that this is your view of us. I forget how young you actually are because you act so much older and more responsible. We do not always use violence to settle matters. In fact, it is usually the opposite. We have law-givers who settle disputes for a given area, who are impartial and fair because they are supported by the towns in which they live so that they may have an unbiased view of any situation they are asked to judge. And they do not settle in the towns where they had grown up—their oaths prevent this. Our society is much like what you have described on your world. The only killings usually happen on the battlefield or in the course of crimes, though the second is rarer than the first. It is unfortunate that you got mixed up in divine matters before getting an understanding of our world. Working for a God or Goddess always entails more danger on a regular basis than a regular being may see in decades.”

  I gave Auraus one last squeeze and broke the hug, wiping the wetness from my eyes with the back of my hand. “Thanks for explaining that to me. The only experience with a town I’ve had here was Meritzon, and that was a rather poor one.”

  I told her about the situation that Arghen, Jason and I had encountered when shopping for supplies in Meritzon’s marketplace and the band of Elven children pickpockets, with Arghen adding in the occasional detail. Ragar listened interestedly to my story. Heather looked at me as I talked, but I wasn’t sure she was listening.

  “I see,” Auraus said, a frown creasing her beautiful forehead when we were done. “You would have had the right to bring that child up to a law-giver. Did no one tell you that this was possible?”

  I shook my head, pushing the blonde hair that had fallen into my eyes back out again.

  She puckered her mouth. “That, I think, needs to be remedied at some point in the future. The guards of Meritzon’s marketplace should have realized that they needed to offer you one. You and Jason as Humans, and Arghen as an Under-elf, would not have known to ask.”

  I waved it away, yawning, “It was long ago now and doesn’t really matter since the child didn’t get away with it.”

  Auraus said kindly, “You are tired, Lise. I will say the Rite for the Dead for the guards by myself, and you should go back to your rest.” She gestured. “See? Heather already has.”

  I looked around to find Heather curled up in Ragar’s lap, sound asleep; her long black hair drifted over his leather-clad knees. He was gently purring as he stroked her head. I remembered how much better I’d felt after he’d purred for me when I’d realized Jason was in the hands of the Under-elves, and I smiled sadly at him. He briefly smiled back without interrupting himself while I surprised myself with a huge yawn. I clambered gratefully back into my bedroll and collapsed into sleep.

  CHAPTER 4

  I woke the next morning with the sun shining in my eyes and the sounds of my companions stirring around me. I sat upright and looked sleepily around to see who was on watch. It was Arghen, who nodded his white-haired head pleasantly to me as I got out of my bedroll. That brought me to full wakefulness.

  “Arghen! You were supposed to wake me for my watch! Why didn’t you?” I said with exasperation.

  He replied, “Auraus, Ragar and I discussed it after you went to sleep, and we decided to split your shift between us. We all felt that you would be better served if you got as much rest as you could. Do you not feel better than you did last night?”

  I stopped and thought about it. “Yeah, I guess I do,” I admitted grumpily. “But no more doing stuff like that without at least asking me first. That’s what’s supposed to happen, right?”

  He said seriously, “I will for the most part, apart from the times when I feel that as an adviser an action I do is for your or the party’s benefit.”

  I quirked my mouth to one side. I’d forgotten that Arghen was not like Dusk, which meant he would have a different style of advising. Arghen had pretty much been my and Jason’s leader on our way in the first time to the mountains, except when he’d turned over the battle leads to me to help teach me what to do. He’d already weighed in on things I’d done on our second trip in to the mountains, but I guessed that my actions had been more or less correct by his standards because he hadn’t said or done anything against them. That made me concerned that he would override me when I made some command that he didn’t agree with as we traveled underground.

  On the other hand, it was his home territory, sort of, that we were headed into, and he would know more about it than me. Should I just let him take the leadership? Logic said I should, but my emotions balked. I wanted to prove to him that I could do it. He’d already taught me so much about this world—from weapon skills, to knowledge of dangers that we might face, to information about living on this side of the mist gate in general, and the beginnings of leadership. I felt like I needed to show him that I’d been taking all his teachings to heart.

  As we packed up the campsite after a cold breakfast in which the annoying little voice in the back of my head bemoaned the lack of lightly cooked bacon, cheesy scrambled eggs, and wheat toast, I ended up deciding to play the situation out by ear. If Arghen overrode me on something, we’d have it out then. I felt a little guilty for my decision because I knew that I was avoiding the confrontation, but I rationalized it to myself that an argument now would take away valuable travel time. Checking around to see that nothing had been forgotten, I saw Heather listlessly stuffing her gear into her saddlebags.

  “Hey, you want a hand?” I asked her, hoping that if I worked with her she would open up about what she was feeling.

  “No,” she said without emotion.

  “Heather,” I began, but she cut me off.

  “Lise, no. Just … go away, okay?” she said over her shoulder at me before turning back to her work.

  I did and silently returned to my own packing. We hit the road before the sun’s rays shone down over the canyon’s lip onto the rocky dirt road. I ordered Auraus to fly scout above us this time, to give us warning if any of the other groups of guards she’d seen before were headed our way. I grimaced as I saw the pile of guard gear that had been neatly piled by the side of the road as we left, and turned my head away from it. I didn’t know why that sight affected me right then the way it did, but it did.

  As we got underway, Arghen asked me, “Lise, I have a question. Why did you not use your iron bar against the quad?”

  I blinked. I had totally forgotten about the iron bar. “Errr, I guess it’s because I sleep with my sword beside my pillow, and I don’t sleep with my sword belt on?”

  Arghen looked at me solemnly. “Lise, you have a great and terrible weapon in that bar. You should use it whenever you can.” Turning to include Heather, he said, “And you should as well.”

  Heather didn’t respond to him. I, however, blushed. “You’re probably right, Arghen, but my sword is my first go-to weapon. It’s what I am more familiar with. And it isn’t like my iron bar is sharp—all I could do would be to bludgeon things with it. That would end up prolonging a fight, wouldn’t it?”

  Arghen looked thoughtful. “It might if it were made of wood or bronze, but it is iron. I would say that your blunt iron bar would be as effective, if not more so, than your sword as long as you touch flesh. But you would lose your fighting techniques, which is a minus. Pity there is no way we can turn your iron bar into a sword, or at least sharpen it somehow.”

  “If we had a kiln or something, we could,” I said.

  “But we have neither the kiln, the tools, the skill, nor the time,” Arghen pointed out.

  “True enough,” I said. “I guess I’ll just have to try and figure out which weapon to use as each situation comes up.”

  During the rest of our scattered conversations, I kept a worried eye on Heather as we rode. She seemed to slowly come back to life while Ragar talked to her as we traveled, but I couldn’t help but feel there was something missing behind her dark eyes. And she still didn’t talk with him or with anyone
about what she was feeling. Mid-morning brought us to where the Sub-realm entrance was supposed to be without Auraus warning us that one of those other wandering guard quads was nearby. The entrance was supposedly located at the end of a twisty trail that dead-ended in the side of a mountain. But when we got there all I saw was a sheer wall of brown and grey rock. There was no entrance here. Auraus landed beside me, her white and gold wings stirring up dust and dirt around us.

  “Auraus? Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked.

  The golden-haired Wind-rider smiled as Heather said impatiently, “Of course it is! Can’t you see the great big cave hole in the mountain in front of your face?”

  Ah. There must be an illusion again, if Heather could see it so easily and we couldn’t. Of course. Just for a moment, I envied her that ability even as I smiled at the spark of life re-emerging in her.

  Auraus gestured downwards with a slender hand. “Look at the ground, Lise.”

  A handful of horse droppings lay scattered on the ground spread out in a kind of a line, as if the horse had been running while pooping.

  The Wind-rider said, “That is how the Faun who’d found this place knew to look here. Bascom may have used his magic to hide the opening, but surprisingly enough he forgot about removing tell-tale horse manure the last time he’d used this entrance.”

  Which, I mused, was probably when the curse had activated after Morsca’s death and created the earthquake that brought the stone keep down on our heads. If that was true, then it wasn’t really so surprising he’d forgotten to look for horse manure.

  Arghen jumped off Stalker to inspect the cave opening before the rest of us had even gotten off our horses. He cautiously put his pale hand to what appeared to be solid stone, and we watched as his hands sunk into the grey speckled brown rock.