Eight: Chapter 18

The light disappeared after only five yards.

“You can do it, Ollie. Just make do.”

I stepped into the dark, gently tapping the way ahead with the butt of my spear; the tunnel seemed to wind a bit, but not overly so. Long ago, water must’ve flowed through this channel and worn away the limestone, from the cave’s entrance toward the depths below. In some places, the tunnel narrowed to rub my shoulders. Where it widened, I kept my left shoulder against the wall. That way, I wouldn’t get lost.

Step by step, in complete darkness, I inched forward. It was an endless torture of stumbling against stalagmites and knocking my head against the ceiling wherever it dropped. The tapping of my spear echoed hollow and attenuated. The air was dry and cool, like the inside of a morgue.

The whole time I listened, sniffed, and sensed with every fiber of my being. It wasn’t the most miserable experience of my two lives—that honor was reserved for sitting beside Helen’s death bed—but it came close.

Eventually, my spear encountered empty air. I crouched to wave the spear below, but it still didn’t reach the floor. The fear that this was a dead-end—that there’d be no way out of the cave—set my heart racing. My grip on the panic started to slip; the battle to overcome the animal inside was never fully won. It raged for as long as we lived.

So, I eased away from the edge and sat back against the wall. My spear lay across my knees, not quite at the ready, but not far from it either. I focused on the feeling of my breath flowing through me, and after watching the darkness for a while, my mind settled enough to focus on circulating my energy. The meditation helped to ground me until I felt more like myself. I would’ve rested longer, but I was up against a deadline: thirst. My throat was parched after my frantic escape from the bishkawi.

I let a bit of precious mana slip into my palm. The energy glowed pale and spectral in my mind’s eye. Too bad it didn’t cast any physical light. I held my breath, anxious to see the result when I connected the mana to the Hydromancy rune.

The mana shimmered blue and wobbled like the sea. Faintly, ever-so faintly, it pulled to go deeper into the cave. There was water down below, somewhere past the steep edge. I licked my lips and nodded to myself. I had to keep going. Maybe I could find a way down?

Next came a handy trick I’d learned for going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, when the consequence of a bad step was an instant cold bath in the Glen’s pool. I flooded the meridians in my eyes with magic. The enchantment only lasted a minute, and there wasn’t enough light to pick up much, but I was vaguely able to see where the tunnel walls opened into the larger space.

I must’ve been near the chamber’s ceiling—there were shapes in front of me that were probably the tips of stalactites. Looking down, I noticed more tips poking upward, stalagmites, but I couldn’t see their bases. From the shape of the cones, the floor was likely thirty or forty feet down—quite a drop.

The situation wasn’t that desperate yet—I willed myself to believe that—so I put my shoulder against the wall opposite to the one I’d been following and walked back toward the blocked entrance. I wanted to check if there was another passage leading down. I’d only risk the drop if I had to.

The path was just as painstakingly difficult as before, but the tunnel did open onto a side passage. I followed this new tunnel, but ten steps later the bottom dropped out from under my spear again.

This time, my spear tapped against stone when I swung it below. The drop was only three feet, so I eased myself down and found another drop just after it—three more feet—and a drop of two feet after that. The deeper I went, though, the more I scented something new: the smell of death. Something ahead was decaying.

I almost turned around then, but if there was death in this direction, then there must’ve been life, which meant food and water too. I made sure of my grip on the spear and kept going. A series of five shallow shelves took me down a total of twenty-five or thirty yards.

At the bottom, the smell was nearly overpowering. Then my spear tapped something loose, which prompted the distinct sound of metal on stone. I got down on my hands and knees to feel for whatever it was, and came upon a wooden shaft, short—only two feet long—and ending in an ax-head. The surface was rough, making me think it was rusty, but when I carefully ran a finger across the edge, I found it intact.

What was an ax doing down here? I reached out with my hands and found the reason: a body, cold and decomposing, with their back against the wall and their legs splayed out in front of them. No armor, just a thickly padded jacket lined with fur. No helmet either. There was a hood instead, one that went down to the shoulders. A tunic was under the jacket, and it stopped about thigh height. They—pardon, she—wore fur leggings to keep her legs warm and leather shoes. The leggings were attached to the tunic by ribbons of cloth.

“I’m sorry, Miss. It was rude of me to pat you down like that, but I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

She wore a thin leather belt with a simple iron buckle. Attached on one side was a scabbard and a small sharp knife. A pouch on the other side contained something that’d gone bad; it reeked of mold and bad cheese. I heard jingling though and found a small pocket sewn into the pouch, containing three small coins.

What I didn’t find was a lantern or the remains of a torch or fire. Had she used magic to light the way? I searched her body again and found a water skin on a leather strap behind her corpse. It was heartbreakingly empty. I set aside my disappointment and kept looking. A stone shaped like a sand dollar was cradled in her hands. If any of her belongings were precious, it was that.

Apologizing again, I took the stone, but didn’t sense any magic coming from it. Infusing a bit of qi polished its surface, but it didn’t illuminate any meridians inside. Maybe it was a precious stone? Or a memento?

I infused it with mana, just to be thorough, and a warm light spread from the stone, illuminating the area as if by candlelight. A sigh shuddered out of me, and my heart trembled with relief to be able to see again.

The corpse of the woman became visible. Some of her skull and the bones of her vertebrae were visible behind her liquified flesh. The fact there was any flesh at all meant that she hadn’t been here for long. Even with the cool, dry conditions in the cave, the bacteria inside the human body could melt flesh in a matter of months. From her clothing, I guessed she’d met her end sometime this past winter.

Her long dark hair had fallen out and lay in thick bunches around what was left of her face. She might’ve been pretty once—it was hard to tell now. Her jacket was green, and the tunic underneath the color of old parchment. Both were dyed green and black from the death fluids that leaked from her mouth and nose. The bottom of her tunic and her leggings were stiff with dried blood.

The sight and smell of her made me nauseous, but it wouldn’t do to show my disrespect. My grandparents had taught me better than that. Besides, the things she carried represented months of work I no longer had to do. The knife, the candlestone, the jacket, the belt, the pouch, and the ax—each of the items was a boon. Her death, as horrible as it was, was a gift to me.

Looking closer, I found a series of cuts all over her clothing, like someone had flailed at her with a dozen sharp knives. Her jacket had protected her from most of the cuts, but there was a bandage wrapped around her thigh, stained all the way through with dried blood.

She must’ve bled to death after dragging herself to this position. What a pity. From the size of her, she was barely sixteen. Maybe even younger.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I said. “I’d give you a proper burial if I could, but I’m in something of a tough situation myself. If I can, I’ll come back and repay my debt. Rest easy knowing that your loss will help me to survive.”

I put her belt around my waist, pulled her leggings over my pants, took her waterskin, put on her hood, and dumped the rotted contents of the pouch. Her jacket was too big for me, and was also shredded, but it was better than the ragged tank-top I was currently wearing. Fortunately, my armor kept it in place. The smell wrinkled my nose, but I was glad to be warm and protected.

I used the knife to cut a strip of cloth from her tunic and make an impromptu necklace for the candlestone. It was still shining, even after fifteen minutes. There were still no meridians, though, so if there was a rune present, I couldn’t sense it.

The ax, I stuck in my belt, but the shaft kept tripping me up. I was playing with the arrangement when I heard a creak. It wasn’t from farther down the tunnel, and it wasn’t from the way I’d come.

Beside me, the young woman’s corpse turned to stare at the candlestone around my neck.

“Oh, damn.”

Black motes of light dispersed from her chest. They floated, hovering in the air, until some unknown gravity pulled them back to spread throughout her body. Her hands shifted to push herself up.

I had the ax in my hands, and—gods help me—I didn’t hesitate at all. I swung it, like I was aiming for a homerun. It was every zombie flick I’d seen in my life channeled into that moment. There was enough force in the swing to cleave through her neck. Her head tore away to bounce with a squelch against the wall.

The zombie fell back, though the body didn’t stop moving. Her arms searched for me. I backed up, while wondering what to do. The movies had lied to me—decapitating the zombie hadn’t worked. Did I need to completely dismember the poor girl to keep her from attacking me? Or find the source of her undead life?

Well, she hadn’t started moving until the darklight spread through her, so I eased over to where I’d dropped my spear to pick it up again. In the meantime, the zombie found a way to track me, even without a head. She shifted onto her hands and knees to stand up. A globule of rotting flesh fell to the ground.

I promised myself I’d throw up later. Instead, I held the spear—then I lost the feeling because of the uneven ground. The zombie was off balance too, though, so my attack didn’t have to be perfect. There was time to line up a good-enough thrust through her heart.

The zombie grabbed the spear’s haft and pulled herself forward to get to me, the spearhead jutting from her back. I kicked her, but that didn’t do anything. She pulled and I pushed in a macabre dance, with neither of us coming out ahead.

I let go of the spear. The zombie fell from the sudden release, and I seized the opportunity to scramble for the ax and chop at her arm. She rolled to the side, but the spear got in her way. I pulled the ax free and took two more swings to hack the arm off. Then, I went around to the other side and hacked at the other arm, the light swinging crazily along with the candlestone around my neck.

When the bloody work was done, she didn’t have an easy way to get me. The headless zombie flopped on the ground, the spear still jammed through her. I pulled the knife from its sheath, but I didn’t need it. The liquified muscles parted for my hand, and the zombie went still when I grabbed the core inside her chest and crushed it.

I lay back, spent and sick at heart for what I’d had to do. “I’m sorry. So very sorry. You deserved a better passing than this.” I cleaned myself up as best I could, and then I did the same for her; I laid her out in a peaceful pose, her arms resting on her lap. “I’ll come back and make amends. I promise.”

I backtracked up the stairs to rest. The fight with the zombie had disturbed me, and I needed a safe place to settle my thoughts.

“Remember to use your spells,” I said aloud, forcing myself to catalog the experience instead of dwelling on the harm I’d done to the girl. “If nothing else, enchant your weapons. You can’t let surprise rob you of your ability to think.”

I paused when a wave of nausea rolled through me. I felt the urge to throw up, but my belly was empty. All I could do was wait for the feeling to pass. The little plant horrors were one thing, but the girl, Biaka, had been a real human being once. And I’d hacked her apart like an animal.

I shook my head to clear it and continued muttering to myself. “A corpse isn’t a corpse until their core is removed. It looked like darklight triggered the process for turning the girl undead. Now that you know, you can end their unlife without overly disturbing their remains. But it was strange that she had darklight in her—did she absorb it from monsters, or is that natural for human beings? Do I have darklight in me?”

The question stopped me, but no matter how much I thought about it, I didn’t have a way to answer. I’d have to ask Ikfael.

“She was dressed warmly. It must’ve been cold when she entered the cave. Was she sheltering from a blizzard? She was all cut up too. Maybe running from a monster or enemy?”

Again, there was no way to answer the questions. Not unless I ran into what had killed her, which was a real possibility. As was running into more zombies—where there was one person, there were often more. Either way, there was evidence of life farther down the tunnel.

I looked down at the candlestone hanging from my neck and didn’t have the heart to hide its light. No, it was more than that—my whole being rebelled at the idea of being lost in the dark again. Well, that didn’t mean I had to make it easy for anything out to get me either. I rewrapped the cloth around the candlestone to narrow its light into a tighter beam. It wasn’t an ideal solution, but it would limit my exposure.

I headed toward where I’d left Biaka and nodded to her as I passed.

The crooked path zig zagged like a snake on the move. The turns made it so that I couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead, and eventually the ceiling dropped, forcing me to crawl. From up ahead, I heard a cacophony of chirping and trilling begin. It sounded like a flock of nightingales all singing at once.

I let my bow go and focused on my spear. There wasn’t much I could do while on my hands and knees, but if there was a hostile creature ahead—like whatever had cut Biaka up—it’d meet me spear first.

The source of the singing either didn’t notice me or didn’t care I was nearby—it continued unabated. Listening carefully, I heard the flapping of small wings. Wary, I tucked the candlestone into my shirt and crawled forward.

The tunnel ended after about ten yards. From the way the sound echoed, I could tell there was a sizable room in front of me. With my light source hidden, though, I couldn’t see much. Fortunately, I had another tool at my disposal. I looked up and randomly clicked.

Hundreds of bats must’ve hung from the ceiling, but none of their talents referenced a carnivorous diet. I let go of the breath I’d been holding and moved out of the narrow passage. I brought out the candlestone again, but kept the light away from the ceiling so as not to disturb the bats.

The chamber was ten yards wide and twenty yards long. A collection of stalagmites sat like huddled dwarves to the right. They looked like white-haired elders from all the guano covering them, and the whole room stank of the stuff.

At the far end, a single spear of sunlight shone from a chimney above. It must be how the bats entered and exited the cave. To get there, though, I’d have to cross a gap in the floor, a miniature ravine spanning left to right, and it looked too far to jump with my eight-year-old body. Maybe it wasn’t that deep?

I crept forward for a closer look, but stopped when a shuffling sound came from within the gap. I held the spear and waited for an attack. Above me, the bats sang to each other. When nothing else moved, I eased forward, ready to stab whatever it was into oblivion.

The light shone on the green hood of a man inside the gap.

The zombie turned toward the light. A cut ran down the left side of his face from his forehead down to his chin. The skin had peeled away and the flesh underneath was rotting—his whole face seemed like it would fall away at any moment.

Akbash’s zombie walked toward the light but ran into the gap’s wall. That confused him for a bit—until he figured out he could climb; the edge was just within his reach. As soon as his head appeared above the gap, though, I stabbed him with my spear.

The point penetrated through his right eye to jam inside his skull, but that didn’t stop him from climbing. I shoved with all my might and dislodged him from the wall. He fell back, got back up, and tried to climb again. This time, I remembered to infuse qi into the spear and swung its butt around like a baseball bat to knock him back.

He got up, and I knocked him loose. He got up again, and I broke his skull with the next swing. He stood, and it occurred to me that trying to outlast the undead was a fool’s game. I was already winded and needed a different approach to keeping him inside the gap. I reached for the ax hanging from my belt.

The next time the zombie grabbed the ledge to pull himself up, I cut his fingers off. He fell back with a thump. He tried once more, using the meat of his hands, so I cut his hands off, one after the other. He fell back with yet another thump.

No matter how much he scraped his forearms against the edge, he couldn’t climb up again. I sat back to catch my breath and shook my head—I was doing a miserable job at not disfiguring the corpse. My grandparents wouldn’t begrudge me the need to defend myself, but their lessons on respect for the dead had stuck with me all my life.

I’d cut off Akbash’s hands, for gods’ sake. I had to put the poor soul to rest without doing too much more damage, so I dusted the dried guano off my seat and approached the gap. The zombie was still trying to climb up, but not making any progress. I picked up my spear and stabbed him through the heart. I tried, anyway. The angle was weird, and his clavicle blocked the strike.

Okay, some damage was going to have to be allowed.

I swung the spear around and thrust the butt out, hitting him with it again and again until the bone broke. I winced, but it needed to be done to put him out of his misery. Switching back to the spearhead, I stabbed him through the heart. The spearhead penetrated through his torso, but missed the core. It took two more thrusts until I nicked it.

The zombie froze when the magic animating him was disrupted. On my next attack, the core inside shattered, and motes of darklight escaped from the holes in his torso. Akbash’s body fell back, finally at rest.

I panned the light along the gap’s floor, and the stalagmites to the right looked climbable. I tucked Akbash’s fingers and hands into my pouch and jumped down.

Akbash looked about the same age as Biaka. It was hard to tell with his face ravaged, but I thought it might be the case. Perhaps the two were friends or lovers? Or maybe it was my imagination making a story of the grim situation. He wore a fur-lined jacket and fur leggings, and the jacket was just as cut up as Biaka’s.

Guano covered the floor, but I saw an underlayer of rusty red. He’d bled to death like her too. The remains of a spear lay on the ground beside him. The shaft was ruined, but the steel spearhead still looked good. It took some doing, but I broke away as much of the ruined shaft as I could and wrapped the salvaged spearhead up in cloth.

Akbash also wore a belt with a knife on one side and a pouch on the other. I took all three. The pouch was empty, except for a small pocket with two small silver coins. I checked Biaka’s coins. They were the same.

If Akbash had been carrying a waterskin, it wasn’t anywhere in sight. He didn’t seem to have any jewelry or tools either, but I did find a candlestone nearby.

Once I was sure I’d found everything, I dragged his body over to the stalagmites. He was too heavy to carry, but I was able to prop him up with their help, moving him bit by bit out of the gap. Then, I dragged his body to the light and arranged it into a restful pose. His fingers and hands, I placed on his lap.

I reached into his chest looking for his silverlight, not knowing if doing so was considered taboo in this world or not. I needed to grow stronger, though, and one of the ways I could do that was leveling up.

It took a bit of time, but there were a couple of grains below what was left of his heart.

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling guilty, “for being so clumsy. I’m coming back to give Biaka a proper burial, and I’ll do the same for you. I promise. Rest easy if you can, and know that your loss will help me survive.”

I looked up at the light coming through the chimney. The ceiling was a long way off, at least twenty yards. There was no easy way to get up there either—no hand holds in the wall or cave features to climb. Nothing.

There was another exit from the chamber though; a tunnel led deeper into the cave system. I went to retrieve my bow, and then, looking one last time at the young man at my feet, I walked deeper into the cave.