The Riches of the Everdark
One of the Myths of Ixonia
This is the last of this season’s stories and is based on Lunar Award’s first Prompt Quest. The prompt:
Write a fantasy short story that takes place inside a maze of cursed catacombs discovered within the planet’s core. They contain hidden treasures and beastly atrocities. Your protagonist is both an explorer and caregiver, torn between the call to adventure and parental duties. Locating treasure will provide for the family, but at what cost?
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(Optional) The story should be written in third person limited omniscient perspective and your protagonist is accompanied by a child.
'Elora went this way,' Tremel felt the ridges of the boot print, the compacted dust untouched for millennia. 'Come on.'
Lyra followed, her thumb in her mouth. She hadn't done that since she as three. Tremel had drag his daughter along. She didn't want to be there and Tremel didn't want to be there alone, not that a seven year old was much help but there was no-one to look after her. Elora was missing. There was no time to wait for Patro or Helomere to return from their treasure hunts. 'Where'd mummy go?'
'This way, little one.'
'But where?'
'I don't where, I just know she went this way,' Tremel repeated for the third time. The winding, claustrophobic tunnels of the Everdark never ended. He'd read about great caverns which could fit cities yet had never found any. The dwarves were no help, disdainful of their troglodyte ancestors that they'd wilfully forgotten their history. The few records that did survive were in Old Dwarven readable by few and understandable by fewer.
He held his palefire lantern up in front of him, the dim flames only slightly blinding him. He was thankful he found it in his last scavenge for regular torches and lanterns were too bright, they attracted the giant slugs and freaked out the bats. Palefire didn't. Tremel followed Elora's footsteps for what felt like miles, his hand sweating from holding Lyra's.
'Why couldn't I wait at camp? I'm tired,' Lyra blew strands of blonde hair out of her face.
'There was no one there to look after you. If something found the camp...' Tremel kept the thought to himself and smothered it in Elora's bootprints. 'Why did you stagger here?' Four sets of prints were trampled over each other.
'I could have hid in the tent, nothing can get you in the tent,' Lyra confidently said.
'If only that were true,' Tremel mumbled. The palefire reached a few feet ahead of him and graced upon a curved shadow and ridges.
'Huh?'
'Mum went this way,' Tremel continued on. Why had Elora gone this way, there was nothing here. No ancient ruins, no caches, no indication of anything worthwhile. Maybe the alokath had taken her captive for trespassing on sacred ground. It wasn't unheard of but... he dismissed the idea, the alokath were hundreds of miles to the east, he was certain.
The winding catacombs delved deeper into the bones of the world. How few people knew of the depth of the Everdark, the breadth of it. Entire lakes, seas, peoples lived down here and few, if any, reached the surface. Entire species of animal, monster, and gateways to other worlds, or so the myths said, lay beneath Ixonia. How few knew. All the better for him though, less competition for ancient trinkets and forgotten relics. Valued for their obscurity and if not that then their weight.
A chill wind howled down the tunnel, the ancient still dust scattering about Tremel and Lyra. The palefire danced against the glass and faded to a single ember. Tremel held his breath. The wind ceased, the fire grew stronger, and Elora's tracks had vanished.
'Daddy, I'm scared,' Lyra clung to his arm.
'I know, little one, but we have to find mummy, okay? Be brave,' Tremel knelt and hugged his daughter.
She nodded but her eyes were sullen, her thumb wedged between her front teeth.
Without a trail there was no hope but the tunnel continued, without any offshoots for another mile. The wind, he'd never come across wind in the Everdark but he chalked it up to the vastness and mystery of it. A world beneath the world, an unending maze of warrens. Had anyone reached the bottom? Was there one? He and Lyra continued on, the tunnel winding ever onwards.
An hour passed before the blue-black rock widened and forked into three paths. Elora's prints had long been scoured clean by the mysterious wind yet Tremel felt drawn down the middle path. There was no reason why but he felt a yearning.
There had been no predators, no monsters, no animals, nothing living, not even mycelium, for hours. No mushrooms, no insects; no insects, no animals; no animals, no monsters. That explained it, Tremel carried on the middle path.
Wide and cavernous, the path ended in total darkness, a darkness his palefire lantern failed to penetrate. Great carved tablets lay in the dirt, smashed apart by something far larger than he. Human figures cowered beneath winged demons, imps whipped lines of dwarves chained at the ankle and neck, alokath heads were piled into pyramids, a great humanoid figure with long downward curved horns hovered over it all. Ice crept along Tremel's bones, a primordial fear stirred his chest, yet he had no idea what the carving represented. There was no story he knew that linked to this. How deep had he gone?
The blackness whispered to him, too quiet to hear at first, but eventually it grew to a din. It wanted him. It wanted Lyra. Great treasures awaited them. Great gifts. Elora... he wondered and the voice whispered, 'Yes.'
Tremel stepped into the sable expanse. The ground vanished but he did not fall. The rock abruptly stop but there was no sun or clouds. His palefire burned but emitted no light. A tightness gripped his chest as Lyra crossed the threshold, a step behind him. Memory stretched ahead and behind him, his vision seemed sharper, his skin glossier. Scars on his fingers were gone. 'Lyra?'
She looked up at him, frowning. 'Your hair isn't grey anymore.' He hadn't been grey-grey, but there had been streaks of age.
Shrieking and hissing assailed them like a blizzard. Great swooping things swarmed overhead, diving and diving again and again, slapping them, scratching them, pecking at them. Tremel shielded Lyra as best he could as the... things... raked his back and arms. Then they were gone. Flying off in the distance was a flock of the things, leathery wings on oversized raven skulls with pits of tar for eyes. Tremel looked behind him but there was only blackness, unending blackness. Above, below, ahead, and behind.
Shimmering glinted far ahead, small and unclear, emerging from nothing into nothing. With three steps he travelled what should have been three hundred and stood over a mound of gold goblets, coins, and chains. 'Lyra, still have your satchel?'
'Huh-uh. Daddy I feel weird. Where are we?'
'I... don't know. Fill your bag with this gold.'
'Where's mummy?' Lyra started with the goblets, filling each with coins and setting them in the corners of her satchel.
Tremel scoured the infinite distance for signs of anything else but there was nothing. Gazing up and down, left and right, he searched in a sphere until he saw a patch of dirt high above him. There were torches but their light was as pale as his lantern. 'All done?'
'Yep.'
'Take my hand,' Lyra did so. He walked towards the patch of ground and appeared there in a single step. Nausea and dizziness had him double over. Lyra vomited at his feet, her skin white as an egg and clammy.
Before them both was a grave, dug out of solid rock. The dirt had been underneath, somehow. Four torches flickered at the four corners of the grave, about Tremel's height and wide enough too. There was no corpse, no bones, no treasures. Yet it was there, in the infinite void.
'You've come to steal my treasure,' Elora hissed.
Tremel spun about to find his wife hunched over a satchel brimming with silver, rubies, obsidian, and gold. Precious gold. Her black hair hung lank over her eyes, her fingernails were yellow and her skin cracked. She wore rags that had a familiar hue but her boils and blisters grew through them. Skin and cloth merged at her wrists in loops of bloody thorns. Scabs lined the top of her head, pus oozed from her scalp. 'I've come to find you and take you home! What happened?' He took a step towards her.
'Mummy?' Lyra shouted giddily and tried to run. Tremel held her hand and pulled her back.
Elora cackled and gradually looked up. Three eyes, bent and twisted, had replaced her left, feathered skin had grown over her right eye. Receding lips and gums revealed blackened teeth, chipped and cracked. Shards of bone burst from her nose and nostrils, hooking round and piercing into her cheeks. 'You're here to steal it! To steal my riches, to take my place!'
Bile rose in Tremel's throat and he stumbled backwards, his balance quivered as his heel passed over the edge of the grave dug into the rock. 'What happened to you? Whose grave is this?'
Elora shrugged, her hunched form and vulture-like neck twisting sickeningly. 'I found it. I found it. They whisper to me. TO ME!'
'Who whispers? What did you find?' Tremel thought of how he got there. How he could get back to the Everdark. Where he was was no Ixonia, he could feel it.
Lyra began to cry. 'Daddy, what's wrong with mummy?'
'I don't know, little one, but we'll fix it. We'll fix it,' Tremel held her hand over Lyra's eyes.
'Fix it? I don't need fixing? Can't you see I am becoming one of them. Soon I will delve deeper into the Rift and discover the demons, become one of them. You can too! It is a gift. A gift I tell you. I understand now,' Elora took a step towards them, the scabs on her thighs and over her knees oozed pus and blood.
'Whatever... whoever you've found, you need to be rid of them! Come home and we'll find a healer. Someone in Valkomere will know what to do.'
'NEVER!' Elora shrieked.
Tremel's vision vibrated and it felt like a pickaxe had been taken to his eyes, ears, and head. The sharp point driven in and wrangled around in a frenzy.
Elora advanced on him, 'Come with me...' The shrieking stopped.
There was no helping her, she had been... corrupted by something, by many somethings. Whatever lived in this place she called the Rift was worse than the winged raven skulls that had assaulted Tremel and Lyra. Much worse. Tremel ran forward and barged into Elora. Her twisted form shuddered, there was a crack, and she fell soundlessly prone. He snatched for her satchel and searched the void for something to move to. There was nothing.
'You cannot escape me! You cannot escape us!' Elora appeared in front of him, standing, her clustered and twisted eyes piercing him with an evil gaze.
He imagined the carved rocks, the dust of the Everdark, and carried on running into her. Just as he thought he'd slam into her he stumbled onto grit and dust and tripped over a stone. The satchel shot out of his hand, the gold and jewels scattering over the ground. He slammed into the dust.
Lyra stood beside him, panting, her own satchel, brimming with gold, held tight to her chest. 'Daddy... daddy, let's go. Let's go now.'
Tremel found his feet and started gathering the gold, silver, and jewels. 'We will. We will.' He found what he could and hurried down the corridor he remembered.
They ran until they saw the campfire and tents. Patro and Helomere sat around the fire eating moluc legs. 'Where have you been?' Patro exclaimed.
Helomere whistled, 'Now that's a find. Where have you been?'
'Doesn't matter. No where we should go back to.'
'Where's Elora?'
Tremel shook his head. Lyra curled up at his feet, sucking her thumb, tears streaming down her face.
'Oh,' Patro said, wide eyed. He returned to eating in silence.
Helomere hung his head, 'Tremel... I'm so sorry.'
'Not talking about it,' Tremel stared into the fire, the flames swayed to and fro. He felt off, not in a bad way, but like he'd lost ten years. After running for miles he'd caught his breath, his eyes felt sharper, his hearing keener.
'Tremel, where's your grey streak gone?' Patro said.
Thanks for reading! This is the last story of the Winter Season of Ixonia, details of the Spring Season will be posted on Thursday and begins next week.
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Oh wow! That was devastating but so, so good!
Beautifully written.