Everything Is Worth Killing- Isaac's Tale

by Alex Oakchest

  “Give him gloves, or I make sure you never need gloves for rest of life,” said Tosvig.

  Harrien nodded. “To be clear, gnome, he means cutting off your fingers. That’s why you won’t need them. Right, Tosvig?”

  Tosvig gave a satisfied nod. “That is right.”

  Erimdag glared at us in such a way that I almost felt ashamed.

  Not quite, but almost.

  “You people are brutes. Look at you. Punching me, threatening chuttin’ decapitation, disembowelment…I used to want to travel out of Agnartis. See the world, the wilds, the cities of the north. The more I see, the more I realize that there is nothing but shit and savagery out there.”

  “Look who’s reached the peak of Mount Moral Highground,” I said. “A rat-faced gnome whose people forced some of us to fight and some of us to work on your tin-can tower.”

  “The duke commanded that. All I have ever done is work on the mines. Would you blame the man who made the knife if someone else stabbed you with it?”

  I glared at him. “You’re happy for it to go on. Out of sight, right? I stuck up for the rest of you gnomes. I told my friends that you can’t hold a man responsible for what his leaders decide. Maybe I got that wrong. Way, way wrong. By calling us savages…By doing nothing, you were complicit, so don’t give me this shit about savagery, when you’ve spent your life in Agnartis, blowing up rocks and jerking off in shipping containers while you have slaves fighting to the death. Give me your gloves.”

  Erimdag folded his arms. “I told you; my da gave them to me.”

  “I will remove his wrists and get you gloves,” said Tosvig.

  One thing I’d learned in my short time in the wilds was that in this world, you found out what a person was truly like once the knife starting twisting. Right now, Erimdag was showing us his true self, and I had to respect it. He just wasn’t backing down.

  I tossed my tin of yellow alchemooze to him and I kneeled in front of him and showed him the poker. “Keep your gloves, then. Spread a little goop on the poker for me. I don’t want to get it on my skin.”

  A few seconds later, and light glowed once more from my poker. Now, I approached the doors and stood at the threshold, pointing the illumination into the mines beyond.

  It was a little underwhelming, honestly.

  “This is it? Looks like the tunnel we just came through.”

  “I suspect you would prefer if the secrets of Mines of Light were piled up by the entrance. Perhaps with a sign,” said Judah.

  “Fair point. Do we know the way to go?”

  “Our people have been in here but once, and the way was not recorded, as they came upon it by chance,” said Judah. “I will go first. Kayla will stay at our rear. We will be safe.”

  “Safer if I go first, too,” said Tosvig.

  “I don’t need your help-”

  “Just let him, Judah,” I said. “Or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  And so, our party of seven, now eight with the addition of a dazed and tied-up Erimdag, pressed on into the darkness of the Mines of Light.

  If it wasn’t for our alchemooze torches, the place would have been pitch-black. Nothing from the outside sneaked in; not even a sliver of moonlight. I was beginning to think the name was ironic. At least Judah and Tosvig had torches in their bags for when we ran out of alchemooze.

  As we walked, Harrien fell in alongside me.

  “Ged, huh, Isaac?”

  “Sorry?”

  “You opened the door. Know what this means?”

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking about,” I said. “The circle etched in the doorway meant only a Lonehill can open it.”

  Harrien grinned. “Exactly.”

  “But I can’t be one of you. Look at me.”

  “True; you will never be one who is beautiful in looks. But in other things? How can you not be Lonehill?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was glad Harrien seemed so excited to believe I was one of them, but I couldn’t quite accept it as true. It just didn’t make sense. I was a human, no doubting that. I had only woken up in this world a couple of months ago, and from time to time I got vague memories of the real world, of Earth. I couldn’t be a Lonehill.

  “Happy, Isaac?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said. “Judah, are we walking blind here?”

  The tallsteep scout shook his head. “We have never possessed a map of the mine’s bowels,” he answered. “And the Originals came only once before our long clan feud began. They made maps of what they remember in the mines, yes, but paper lives not long. It is burned, torn, lost. Even so, where words on a page fade, song never dies. One has been passed down in place of map.”

  “Oh, Great Mine of Mine?” said Tosvig. “That song?”

  “That is it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “A child’s song.”

  “And yet, there’s truth in it. Songs are not just to send children to sleep, Tosvig. They carry truth in their melodies. Their lyrics are a way of passing knowledge through the ages.”

  “And the way winds down, deep to the heart,” sang Harrien. Sang would be the technical way of describing it, but an MP3 with Harrien’s songs on it wouldn’t top the charts anytime soon.

  “Through mists of time and past pools of dew,” Judah sang, his voice much deeper than Harrien’s.

  One by one all of them took up the song, singing it quietly, barely above conversation volume. Only Erimdag, Kayla, and I didn’t join in. The gnome and I didn’t know a single word, and Kayla hadn’t been in a talking mood since Kostig left, let alone a singing mood. She was all-business, with a ridiculously strong focus on getting this done.

  As Judah, Harrien, Tosvig, Adi-Boto, and Cleavon’s voices became one, I felt something strange. Something I hadn’t expected.

  I felt left out.

  I leaned toward Harrien. “Can you teach me the words?”

  “Take too long, Isaac,” he said, and rejoined the others in verse.

  Wow. Harrien had never dismissed me like that before. I dropped back a little in pace and let them walk ahead, taking the rear guard. Erimdag walked ahead, while Kayla was in front of him.

  Cleavon strolled alone, chewing on huti leaf. This was a leaf that grew on some of the trees in the wild, and the Lonehills believed it eased a person’s thoughts. It also gave off a stench of mulch and dirt when mixed with saliva, so it wasn’t hard to see why nobody walked in step with the healer.

  I tried to ignore the others and their song. Sure, the lyrics were a guide to get through the mines, but I didn’t want to hear it anymore.

  Instead, I focused on glancing behind us from time to time to make sure nothing was creeping up on us. In-between glances I lifted my poker and illuminated the walls either side of us.

  The stone that made up the innards of the mine was black, cold to the touch, and usually wet with dew. In was sheer in some places, rising to enormous heights above and forming a cliff. Other times I’d see a gap to one side and see a drop that seemed to plummet deep into the bowels of the mine.

  It was an hour later, after the rest of them finally stopped singing, that I noticed something.

  I had just glanced behind me, checking that nothing following us. Then, as I swept my poker to my left, I spotted something on the ground.

  “Guys,” I said.

  They stopped. Tosvig drew his sword. “Following us?”

  “No, nothing’s following us.”

  “Then what?” asked Judah.

  I pointed at the ground, at a little pile of feces illuminated by gnomish alchemooze.

  “A pile of shit,” I said.

  “So?”

  “So, we’re in a mine. We’ve been walking for an hour, maybe two, and you’ve steadily led us deeper. Do you want to tell me what kind of animal is shitting down here?”

  “Not a small poo, either,” said Harrien.

  “But dry,” added Tosvig.

  “As enriching as this conversation is,” said Cleavon, “can we
keep going?”

  Judah shook his head. “No, they’re right. This is suspicious, healer. Animals down here? Not just vermin, from the looks of their waste. Something else. What can it be?”

  “Runenmer,” said Harrien.

  Judah scoffed. “I don’t think the Runenmer goes around shitting in tunnels, even if he could get in.”

  Harrien shook his head. He pointed at the ceiling above us, the glow from the alchemooze on his sword lighting over the stone.

  There, just ten feet above us, was a small rune. It looked like it had been painted onto the stone rather than etched in, and it was no larger than a bicycle wheel. I tried to remember if it was the same as the runes that I had seen in the clan’s camp and the wilds, but I couldn’t say for certain.

  “Impossible. How can he get in here?”

  “He can’t,” said Cleavon. “The boy is being foolish.”

  “Foolish? I remember the rune under poor Perryn,” said Harrien.

  My mind flashed to the image of the Lonehill kid in the forest, crushed beneath a giant boulder and with a rune underneath him. I saw his broken bones, the blood around him. The look of struggle that froze on his face in death.

  “That’s the same rune,” I said. “It’s one of Runenmer’s.”

  “He can’t get in here!” said Cleavon.

  “He can, and he has,” said Tosvig. “Face truth, healer. The Runenmer might be here with us. Might have got here before us. And there are other things, too. Things that live and shit in tunnels.”

  “We go back,” said Harrien.

  Cleavon scoffed. “Leave? Abandon our journey? Over a pile of feces and a drawing that looks like a rune? You would give up?”

  Judah stroked his chin. “We cannot go back, even if we wished. Mine doors that let us in, will not let us out. Our only way out would be another door across the mines, after claiming the prize we came here for.”

  “Or we go through the mines, instead of deeper into them,” said Harrien. “Cross them near the upper levels until we find exit. Safer than going deeper.”

  “You talk of running? In front of Tallsteeps?” said Tosvig. Cleavon nodded along with him.

  “I talk of surviving to see Mardak and others again. We have already lost a lot.”

  I was impressed with how mature Harrien sounded, even if I disagreed with what he was saying.

  “We have come all this way. We already lost Pendras and Siddel in this sorry saga. Now that we’re in here, we can’t leave because we might share the mines with others,” I said.

  “He is right,” said Cleavon.

  Judah looked at his silent friend. “Adi?”

  Adi-Boto peered into the darkness ahead of us, untouched by the glow of our alchemoozes. It was a darkness that promised many things; not just the treasures both clans would need to get strong again, but also the things that lived in the mines, and maybe even Runenmer himself. It was the first time I’d seen Adi-Boto hesitate about anything.

  Finally, he nodded.

  “Adi wants to keep going,” said Judah. “Cleavon?”

  “We press on.”

  “Harrien?”

  “Go back.”

  “Tosvig?”

  “Tosvig backs down from nothing.”

  Judah looked at me. “Isaac?”

  Logic told me the deeper I went into the mines, the less chance I had of surviving. But, if we got the medallions and weapons we came here for, my long-term survival rates went sky high. The benefits were too much to miss out on.

  “I say we go.”

  “Kayla?” asked Judah.

  “If I see Runenmer, I will ram a fist down his throat and a sword up his arse. I owe that to Kostig.”

  “I’ll take that as affirmative to following our track. That’s settled, then; we keep going.”

  The gnome shuffled forward now. “Don’t I get a vote?”

  “I’ll give you the same level of freedom that you gnomes give your slaves,” said Judah.

  We walked for another few hours. I thought it was hours, anyway, but submerged in that ocean of black, it was impossible to judge time. I could have counted our footsteps, with each step representing a second, but focusing on the rhythm would lull me to sleep.

  Kayla took over rearguard duties, while Tosvig headed to the front of our pack. We all switched roles every so often to stay fresh. We spoke only in murmurs and only spared what words were vital. Judah even tore up a couple of his old shirts, and we wrapped pieces of it around our boots to dampen the sound of our footsteps.

  As we followed passageways deeper into the mines, I saw more runes. More piles of crap.

  “I swear it’s getting fresher the further we go,” I said.

  Judah was about to speak when Harrien stumbled into a wall and banged his head. He groaned.

  There was a schwing sound as Tosvig dropped a wooden torch to the ground and drew his blade.

  “Harrien? Trouble?” he said.

  “I’m okai,” said Harrien. “I think I just fell asleep. Can you do that while walking?”

  “I’m tired too,” said Judah. He settled onto the ground. “We’ve been walking for hours. We should rest.”

  “Rest? With Treah-knows-what around us? You’re chuttin’ crazy,” said Erimdag.

  “Sleepwalking into walls is nature’s way of telling someone they must sleep,” said Judah.

  Harrien sat down now. Behind us, Kayla allowed herself to settle into a crouch, though she stared intently into the darkness. Tosvig did likewise at our front.

  Adi-Boto sat down next, and then me, leaving only Cleavon standing.

  “Rest?” said the healer. “No. Push on. Mardak is waiting for our return. We must not delay.”

  “Where do you Lonehills find your healers?” asked Judah. “Doesn’t he know a person needs rest? If anything were to challenge us now, we wouldn’t have the energy to fight it. We need to eat and rest so we can face the dangers ahead.”

  “It’s risky,” said Cleavon.

  “Yap, but necessary. We will post guards.”

  “What if there was another way?” said Cleavon.

  “Go on, healer. I’m listening.”

  “I have powders. I can mix them and make a paste that will banish your tiredness.”

  “Healer potions rarely come for free. What will they do to us?”

  “True; your sleep debt will accrue. When you finally allow enough time for the paste to stop working, your exhaustion will be overwhelming. But I have enough powders to last us all until we get back to our camp. We could keep going without needing rest.”

  “I have to admit, I would rather not sleep down here.”

  Cleavon rubbed his hands together. “Excellent. Let me get started. I’ll prepare enough for all of us.”

  “Not me,” said Kayla.

  “Why?”

  “Suppose this takes longer than we expected. Maybe a few days longer, and we run out of your magic paste. What happens then? All of us fall asleep and stay that way for days? Lie there vulnerable, all of us in one big sleeping heap? No thank you. If some of you use the paste, then you can stay on guard while I sleep.”

  “Yes,” said Tosvig. “She is right. I will not have any, either. Clever, Kayla.”

  “Thank you, Tosvig.”

  Cleavon muttered something under his breath, but he must have known better than to argue with Tosvig. He put his bag on the ground and started taking things out. “It will take me a while to get this ready.”

  Judah nodded. “How long?”

  “Thirty minutes or so.”

  “Kayla, Tosvig, relax for a time. Adi and I will switch places with you.”

  The four of them shuffled in and out of position. This left six of us crowded in one part of the passageway, with Judah and Adi-Boto either side of us, a little further into the darkness where they would sense anything coming.

  “Who is this Runenmer, anyway?” whispered Erimdag.

  “Quiet,” I said. “I don’t know him, but I know enough
that it wouldn’t be wise for him to hear our voices. And it isn’t just him we need to worry about.”

  “Anything that dwells here will be further toward the heart of the mines,” said Erimdag. “Where there will be rock pools and life that breeds in the blackness.”

  “I thought you had never been here before?”

  “Not this mine. But I have spent my life underground. There are so many noises in a mine, like stones shifting, water dripping. There are so many passageways, some blocked, some open. A mere whisper will not carry to strange ears, and I would rather not sit in silence. I tell you from experience of supervising teams of gnomish miners; silence breeds fear, rather than protects against it. We should talk to keep our spirits up.”

  Nobody said anything.

  “So?” pressed Erimdag. “Who is Runenmer? A monster? A man?”

  “You could ask the question to a thousand people and get a thousand answers,” said Judah. “If you ask me, he is change. An instrument of evolution sent upon those whose survival instincts have stagnated. He is a reminder to us all; you either survive, or you die. There is nothing more, and yet both outcomes are rightful. There is no point greater than that of survival. Beauty, love, it doesn’t matter. There is no higher purpose than drawing breath one morning to the next.”

  “And I thought my people were grim,” said Erimdag.

  “Judah gives Runenmer bastard more credit than he deserves,” growled Tosvig. “He is an outcast. Loner. No clan of his own, and with bitterness blooming inside him.”

  “Bitterness and power,” said Harrien. “Runenmer has magic unique to himself, one that dwarfs ours.”

  “You sound in awe of him.”

  Kayla spoke up now. “There is nothing to admire about Runenmer. He is beyond things like that. The Runenmer is revenge. He is driven by that, and that only.”

  “Interesting,” said Erimdag. “Who knew a person you all fear universally could have such different roles in your minds.”

  “Shut up, gnome.”

  “And you, silent one?”

  The gnome stared at Adi-Boto, who said nothing.

  I wondered if he would ask me, and I didn’t know what I’d say. The Runenmer meant nothing to me. It was another reminder that I didn’t have a history here. This wasn’t my land, these weren’t my people. I didn’t share any of their past, their fears. To me, the Runenmer was just another obstacle in my survival.