by Abby Dewsnup
And below the houses, in the network of shadowed alleyways and dwellings, James never reappeared, evading my grasp like smoke.
2
The Elder’s Palace
“James,” I hissed, my back pressed against the sandstone column. “James, you can’t be out past sundown.”
There was no answer. The streets were alive with people rushing back to their dwellings, each clad in red-rock colored coverings around their shoulders and faces. The sun-seals above us were trickling with golden light, warning the civilians that night was falling. James hadn’t returned to our dwelling that evening, and I was growing worried.
“Anya,” a booming voice said. I turned, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The man was a local in the markets, his dark gaze concealed beneath the hood of a cloak. Most citizens thought he was mad. “Are you staying out tonight, Imuni?”
“I’ve told you more than a thousand times, Jasper, I can’t bring you into my dwelling. Not tonight,” I said, my words frantic and rushed. “And don’t call me that so loudly, alright?”
He threw up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright,” he said. “Have you any light stored that you could share with an old man?”
I fingered the orb around my neck. I didn’t want trouble with the patrolmen, but I knew Jasper’s orb was flickering, draining him of his only shield against the shadows.
“Here,” I pulled the orb from my neck and touched his necklace with it, watching his bulb grow brighter. “For keeping the secret of where I get my light.”
He winked, clutching his orb with greedy fingers. “Bless you, Anya. And don’t let the patrolmen catch you searching for your brother. You and I both know that sort of attention isn’t good for us below.”
“So what if they catch me?” I replied, draining the venom from my voice. “I’ve had plenty of run-ins with those men, and they haven’t banished me yet.”
Jasper shook his grimy head. “James is a good kid, but don’t hold your breath. People don’t last long down here; you know that as well as I do.”
“He knows what to do,” I replied. “He’s a tough kid. Tougher than most.”
Jasper shrugged and turned away, slinking off into the darkness. I had a growing suspicion that Jasper was a Light Bringer — those storybook people who descended from the sun. There was no other explanation why he survived each night alone in the darkness, with his light dwindling like a candle flame. He must have light radiate from his very core to keep the Stygian ghosts at bay.
I wondered, as I always did, why the Cave-Dwellers stayed underground. If light was so abundant above ground, rising and setting each day without so much as a single threat from ghosts or stories, then the Elders could lift the ceiling and bathe us all in the sun. Perhaps they worried there would be no currency anymore, that our financial stability would collapse. Or it was a matter of pride, some ancient wiring within each of us that warned of the land above.
I suppose I had been a dozen feet away from the sun my entire life, and I had never escaped, either. Maybe the Stygian remained because they knew that we were too afraid of the light to banish their darkness.
I scanned the market square a final time before dashing down the street. Red banners hung off of cramped balconies in the alleyway, dusting the sandy floor. I passed beneath archways of chiseled stone and flickering lamps, watching as the golden crest of the Caves glared at me from every doorway. Get inside, they seemed to whisper. They’re coming.
I knew these streets well. I was born in the stone alleyways, and my mother taught me how important it was to have a dagger in hand when trekking through the villages. It wasn’t solely Stygian who dwelled in the darkness.
“James,” I cried a final plea.
A woman huddled against a pillar, her frail form shivering as night descended. I caught sight of her, sighing as compassion settled in my bones. You don’t have time for this, my head whispered. I ignored my inner thoughts and instead approached the woman.
She shot her head up and gazed at me with a fearful expression. She clutched a child in her hands. I tugged my orb from my neck and tapped it against hers, watching the glass come back to life with light. “Find somewhere to stay for the night, and quickly,” I whispered.
She grasped my hands in a silent thank you before turning to race down the street, her grime-stained cloak flapping behind her.
There was a faint rustling sound above me. I retreated behind the archway, daring a glance at the balcony. A dark figure perched on the rooftop, his hood drawn and his limbs covered in what I recognized to be an archer’s gear. His form was smoking as if his insides were on fire. In his hand was a drawn bow, flickering in and out of view.
I felt a shudder pass through me. This wasn’t the first Stygian I had seen today, but still, the warning that emanated from him chilled me to the bone. He waited on the roof like a cat stalking its prey, silent, unmoving. I knew he was waiting for the sun to vanish over the hilltops above us. At least, I imagined there were hilltops.
“I hope you’re home, James,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone. Or maybe I was talking to him, the Stygian, in a weak attempt at peace.
I spared the Stygian a final look before dashing from the archway and into the alleyways. The streets were empty, cleared of civilians who were safe within artificially lit dwellings. I knew that if I pounded on their doors they wouldn’t answer. The Stygian had already tried that, night after night. The people had learned to ignore them.
My heart beat loudly in my chest. The orb around my neck was glowing brighter in the fading light, promising a few rays of protection. But I had seen what the Shadows did to my people. Their orbs hadn’t held much promise then.
I worried that Lanke had told the council about our dealings. What if they had taken James because of my Light Smuggling?
One day, I thought as I sprinted through the streets, one day I won’t have to smuggle light from the far reaches of the Caves. One day our family will return for us, and we will escape into the sunlight.
There was a hissing sound that echoed through the caves. I rounded the corner, sprinting straight into the darkness. Raising my hand, I grasped the wooden plank that stretched across the crumbling sandstone buildings, swinging myself onto the ledge. I could see Stygian ghosts crawling through the streets, some astride dark horses whose hooves thundered off the rocky ceiling.
This was another one of my secrets. I hadn’t lived in a proper dwelling in years. If the Elders knew they had evicted my family from this area long ago, they would send me away, too. But I couldn’t leave here. Not yet.
James and I had made a makeshift dwelling in the crumbling skeleton homes by the Ridgeline. I scrambled across the pole and ducked inside the half-collapsed window, praying that my little brother was there. Considering he didn’t have an orb, he would need the lantern light tonight to keep the Stygian away.
The room was empty. The sinking sensation had returned to my stomach. It was likely he was somewhere safe, unable to return home for the night. Still, I couldn’t ignore the feeling that James was where he wasn’t supposed to be.
A memory was surfacing, an ancient one from years ago. Back when James was too young to help me work, and I was kind. Before the streets had changed us both.
We had been standing by a fruit vendor, desperate for food. I begged James to sneak by with his small hands and steal a piece — anything — to provide us a meal.
“I’m afraid,” he whispered, peering up at me through a tangle of curly hair.
“Don’t be afraid. You won’t get caught,” I urged him, kneeling in the alleyway. “Now go, we haven’t got much time.”
He was successful in his mission, but before we even had time to take a bite of the precious fruit the patrolmen appeared around the corner like an omen, their swords were drawn and eyes gleaming. One of the men grabbed my brother and shook him in his fist, dragging him to the center of the square.
“No, stop!” I had screamed, stumbling into the m
arket behind him. “It was me, I’m the thief, not him!”
I pushed the memory aside. The patrolman had burned me right there in the square with his blistering stamp. On both my hands was the mark of a T, rotting and black against my skin. I hid them well with fingerless gloves, but I couldn’t forget that I wore the disfigurement each day like an adulterer. All for a piece of fruit.
Not that it mattered. I wished to see the sky, the fabled blue that stretched over trees and castles. Once, long ago, I promised James we would find a way above the ground.
It’s not that we were prisoners within our kingdom. The Caves were open to anyone, as most places were. But for a citizen to leave, we have to have departure papers and permission. And to ask, we must present ourselves as citizens.
James and I were marked as escapees the minute our family left. We’d been lucky to stay away from the patrolmen and keep to ourselves. If they knew we were homeless, or that our parents had escaped years ago, James and I would be thrown into the mines to work. All hope of seeing the sky would be gone.
Not to mention that no one except my parents had left the Caves in a hundred years. The world above was changing, growing more dangerous. We all lived in fear of the Shadow people, but up above, in the sunlight, evil thrived. The night mom and dad left, they promised they would return once they knew it was safe. A small part of me knew that it didn’t take nine years to check if the outside was okay for us.
I sat in the window frame, flicking my dagger up and down in my hand. I watched the Stygian ghosts crawl through the streets, their unintelligible voices rising in a great cacophony of noise. I was glad for the glow that radiated from the attic, keeping them far away from me. Above the village, dangling from the cave ceiling, were the floating lanterns, promising light in the darkness.
I wondered, for a moment, what the ocean felt like. I had only read about it in stories, and the idea of a body of water that large was beyond me. Maybe my mother and father had built a cottage in the sand, close enough that the sea wore away their floorboards each morning.
“Anya, resident of the Southern Ridge, you are requested by the Elders.”
I nearly fell off the ledge. Grasping onto the crumbling rock, I peered far down the building at the hooded rider, his horse stomping on the ground with impatience.
“It’s past sundown,” I hollered, clutching my dagger close to my chest. “The Stygian will kill me if I come down.”
The rider raised his hooded head and pulled a glowing staff from his back. “The Elders have gifted your travel with light. Do you doubt their power?”
“No, I just — I didn’t know they had that sort of power,” I said, more to myself than anyone.
“They request you at once, and it is not fit to keep them waiting.”
I clambered down the poles, aware of the hissing that surrounded us in the dark. It went against my every instinct to be near the Stygian, but none of the creatures attempted to touch me. “Might I ask why the Elders need me?” I asked in a hoarse voice, sliding onto the horse behind him. Hot tears pricked my eyes. The Elders would only request my audience if James was in trouble, or if they had discovered that we were alone. The small fact that my orb was stolen could land my brother and I in the mines for life.
As the mysterious rider guided the horse through the dark, I became aware of hundreds of glowering faces surrounding us. The Stygian ghosts peered from ledges and pressed themselves against walls, hissing in anger as we passed. I stared them down in defiance.
On the far end of the Caves were the waterfalls. The falls pounded into the lake with such force that they echoed throughout the Caves day and night. The true spectacle, however, was the Elder’s palace. The castle was carved from limestone, protruding from the colossal wall as if it was a living part of the Caves. The grounds were sacred, and only those permitted could enter to stand in the presence of the ancient Elders. It stood just beneath the falls.
I began to have doubts about why they had summoned me. Surely the mines were a matter beneath the Elders, and fitted for the Cave council?
As the palace approached, I craned my neck to get a glimpse of the highest tower. Could James be inside, waiting for me? Maybe they would banish us both, and James and I could start our lives above, in the great unknown.
“You are not approaching your banishment, young thief,” the rider said in a hoarse voice, as if he could read my mind. “Only your beginning.”
His words were not exactly comforting. We rode in silence the rest of the way, stopping before the iron gates of the palace. I slid off the horse and the rider trotted back into the city without so much as a nod.
Light began to run through like grates of the gate as I approached it. Slowly, the gate opened, creaking as if it the Elders hadn’t used it for a long time.
The doors were large and made of stone. I stepped before them and knocked with the knocker, hearing it smack against the rock. After a moment the doors opened, massive and ancient in their movements.
The palace was dimly lit, with open corridors on each side of me. Straight ahead was a door that emanated light, a glowing beacon in the dark. I instinctively glanced around at the darkness, half expecting a Stygian to race out with his sword raised. When the silence persisted, I took another step inside.
“Elders?” I whispered into the dark. “Are you here?”
Ignoring my instinct to run back to my makeshift dwelling, I pushed open the glowing door and stepped inside.
Inside were four glowing lanterns, larger than any I had ever seen. They hung from the ceiling, shedding light on the seven thrones. The legs to the thrones were thin, resembling wire as they stretched high above me and supported the gilded seats. My attention was not on the thrones, but on the creatures sitting in them. They were unnaturally thin, sallow and feeble, with pale, hairless skin. Their eyes were white and delicate ridges adorned their foreheads, each decorated with jewels that glistened in the light.
The room was heavy with silence. I became aware of other Cave-Dwellers standing next to me, some with their arms crossed in indifference and others staring at the Elders in awe. I counted six of us. They must’ve arrived before me.
The door opened again behind me, making me jump. A boy who looked a few years older than me entered, his expression filled with anger.
“Welcome, expendables, to the Elder’s court,” a voice said. It didn’t seem to be emanating from a single Elder, but rather all of them at once. “Each of you will serve a purpose in reviving our kingdom.”
“Reviving your kingdom?” a boy shouted, crossing his arms. “I’ll revive your bloody kingdom when you return my brother to me.”
I turned to him. “I lost my brother, too,” I whispered.
His expression softened when I said this. “You did?”
“Each of you has lost someone dear to you, it is true. And each of you bears the mark of your transgressions.” The Elders said.
I glanced at each of their hands in turn, making out various burns for their sins. I curled my own fists, feeling the T mark stretch and break where the scar began.
“We have called you into our court because the race of the Shadow is growing, spreading like a disease across our people. Already, the Stygian ghosts are adding to their ranks, and more citizens are falling into the darkness.”
A few people murmured something I couldn’t make out.
“The Stygian shadows plague surrounding lands, their power strengthening against our feeble attempts to combat it. We cast our eyes across the Fringe, searching for a source of power strong enough to end the Stygian across our kingdom. We have seen a cure for this plague, and it lies within the kingdom of the Light. This is an ancient kingdom, one that lays in a realm above our own, but not an impossible task. The Light Kingdom holds enough wisdom to combat our darkness.”
The group was silent. Judging by their faces, I guessed they knew more about the Light Kingdom than I did. I had never cared to brush up on my geography at the library in my spare ti
me.
“We believe the Light Kingdom, which has remained neutral for centuries, possesses the secret to rid the world of the Stygian and all other ailments that have come to the surface.”
The girl next to me stared up at the Elders with a fearful expression. “What has this got to do with my father?”
“Those who are dear to you are acting as an incentive. We have seen your ways. We understand many of you would rather escape into the world outside — the Fringe — than to save your people. Once sent to the Kingdom of the Light, one cannot exist unless freed by an outside source. Those who are important to you are in the Kingdom as we speak, obtaining the cure, and awaiting your arrival to free them.”
James was out there all alone, a ten-year-old boy without any clue why his sister wasn’t with him. “No one has ever entered the Kingdom of the Light. It’s practically a myth,” I finally said. “At least, that’s what I remember. I used to think unicorns lived there.”
A wave of laughter passed through some of the group. They fell silent quickly as the Elder’s said, “It is a great honor to be chosen to act as rescuers for someone you love.”
“If you sent them to the Light Kingdom, why not send us there, too?” a small girl asked.
“The people of the Light Kingdom ask for much and give little. We were able to send a group of people into the Kingdom on the terms that they would stay and study with the people of their world. However, your dear ones were given separate, secret instructions regarding the saving of our Caves. As we speak, your loved ones are living among the people of the Light Kingdom, studying and praying with them. But they are not part of them. They await the rescue group that will bring them home with the knowledge of how to combat the darkness.”
“And why can’t we ask for help from the Light Kingdom in the first place? Ask them flat out for what we need?” I asked. “Or will your pride not permit it?”
“The Stygian are invading us like a plague. They crawl through the streets even when the sun hangs high in the sky, filling our lungs with their smoke. We are asking for heroes, for those brave enough to face the world above and find the Light Kingdom.” The Elders said in unison, their milky eyes sweeping across the room. “We do not have time to waste, and we cannot risk the dignity of the Caves. You will find the entrance to the Light Kingdom, and you will save us all.”
