Shara stood up from her source-casted table, made of reshaped stone from the cave floor. She stepped up from the the circular indent in the ground, where the stone had been removed to form the table. Tea time was over! It was time to continue being Shara Shae, the Great Explorer!
Shara stepped forward with confidence as the cave narrowed around her into an archway barely large enough for a grown adult. She had put off exploring the inner caverns of the cave for nearly a month. It was time to be brave.
The pathway was small for what seemed like an eternity, and she came out into a room very much like the last, except it had a large opening on the right half of the room floor that didn’t seem to have a visible end. She went left and stayed as far away from the opening as she could while refusing to hug the wall.
A small rock fell up ahead and tumbled close to the edge of the opening. Shara felt her heart speed up. This was the moment of choice. Should she look and see what made the rock fall? Or should she turn and run and hope she was faster or that it would not harm her?
She looked.
It was like a shadow, somehow darker but with texture. The strange shadow sat in the corner, but rather than a natural darkening, it was a sudden shift from an illuminated wall to a deep shadow. She knew it wasn’t actually a shadow but her eyes were convinced it was. It shifted and shimmered like no shadow ever had. It was like it knew it was being looked at and it was trying to blend in. It was like she could feel it holding its breath along with her. She could not make any eyes out, but she felt it was staring at her just as cautiously as she was staring at it.
The time walking through the dark cave seemed like no time at all as the seconds stretched on with neither creature or girl able to look away from the other.
The shadow straightened itself up. Shara felt her eyes go wide and her body tense in preparation to fight or flee. She held her small patch of ground as it rose up to a height taller than most adults, but was more lean. As it reached its full height, its features clarified. It’s face was not unlike her own, or her fathers. Less human but definitely similar to the Illari traits she had inherited from her father. It had specks of light that seemed hidden behind layers of black smoke where its eyes would be. It stood in a relaxed stance, its armor was like an external rib cage, whirling around like a tree trunk covered in vines, but made of hard black growths. Its whole body was shrouded in that dark smoke that seemed to shift and come off of it like a small but well fed campfire. The smoke seemed to emanate from a single source, near the creature’s right shoulder. The billows poured out of this source, moving from this central point in every direction and wrapping around the entire body in slow streams.
The jewel wasn’t in an amulet around its neck, like her own. It looked as though it had been shoved into the creature’s shoulder. It was as if an Artificer had implanted the natural materials straight into its body and let the organic setting grow around it, like a piece of jewelry. Ridges of dark grey flesh rose around the jewel that looked to be obsidian.
When her sense of wonder faded slightly, she heard the screams from the back of her mind.
Xenai! It’s Xenai! You must run!
It will catch you and kill you if you run. You must fight!
Frozen in the choice, Shara slowly began to back away. Half a step at a time, while continuing to face it. She checked and double checked each time she placed her foot down to make sure she was on the cave and not discovering any new holes in the cave floor.
It spoke. It sounded like any other Illari, for that was what it was once, but with a sharp and gravelly tone, as if speaking aloud actually hurt it.
“You are the Inari girl…Sheeeera?”
Shara nodded slowly, “Shara”
“Shaw-raw,” it repeated.
Her mother had raised her to be polite to strangers, and she found herself asking, “What is your name?”
“Fiher”
“Fur?”
She felt like it was smiling, but there was no visible indicator on the dark face made of shadow.
“Yes. Fur.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Fur. I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone here.”
“I came to you. We see many thing about you.”
“Me?”
“You don’t need amulets, as the Illari do and as we Xenai do.” It lifted a hand to the obsidian buried in its chest.
“No, I don’t, but they make it… easier…” Shara hesitated before asking, “Does that hurt?”
“It did. But it does not, any longer.”
“Thats good. That it doesn’t. Now.”
Shara didn’t know what other things to say to this Fur. Was it a ma’am or a mister? She was pretty sure it was rude to ask. She could almost see her mothers stern look if she dared to ask anyone which they were.
“Why did you want to see me?”
“You are in danger. From us. Not me. The Xenai. The humans.”
Shara wanted to ask how, what humans, why, but instead found herself asking, “Why not from you?”
“There are many of us who think no… fight… and hurting others…is good. Any more. Used to fight, to kill. But, no more. We love children, not kill a child who did not get to choose what she is.”
“We are taught all Xenai are murderers.”
“Some of us see us that way.” He looked… no… he felt… sad. “You must stay with guards, all the—”
His head jerked abruptly up, looking past Shara to the path she had come in by, “Others come. Not sure mine or yours.”
Shara could hear distress in his gravelly voice. Either option would end badly for one of them. She could find out for who, but did she trust this Xenai enough? She looked at him, his smoke-like aura rapidly forming peaks that vibrated then went down. Is he afraid?
“Let me see,” she said and put her hand to the cave wall again. Part of her mind screamed again at the thought of her closing her eyes, but she already trusted Fur. She knew he could have killed her by now, if he had wanted to.
Her eyes closed. The rock wasn’t vibrating, but sometimes that was what it felt like when it told her things. The footfalls were heavy and thick.
“They are mine. You should go, Fur. Find a better shadow to hide in. I will go to them and get them to leave.”
Fur’s obsidian smoke jacket shimmered and shifted again. It made her think that he was thinking about what she had just said very intensely.
“Yes, child Shara. Safe stay in Prin. Do not be found alone, anymore. If you find more Xenai, they try to kill you. But, my new tribe. We use the word ‘Zerstörer’ to know each other. Use if must. ”
“Jehr-stoh-rah?”
She felt him smiling again.
“Close enough,” Fur turned and began to move toward the archway on the far side of the cavern. Shara watched him go then turned back her own way.
As she stepped into the small tunnel connecting to the larger cavern just inside the cave’s mouth, she heard a shout. The heavy movements of the human troops didn’t need to be translated through the stone. Something had excited them. They were running around.
She started running toward the sound as the shouts and movement picked up pace. She came out of the small curve before the opening and saw red. The red rocks in the first cavern were shifting and moving in a way that seemed like they were sweating. As her eyes focused, she realized it was blood running down the rocks. A troop of Xenai, approach masked to her by the cacophony humans always make, had come up behind the humans and attacked them in the first cavern. There were bodies, both human and Xenai, scattered around the room. The General stood halfway between the cave opening and her, fighting a Xenai that had its back to her.
She saw the General’s eyes widen as he saw her. He barely managed to get his rifle up to block a swing from the Xenai. The Xenai shoved him with all of its impressive strength and he flew back into the cave wall. It knew. It turned quickly to face her while the General was still in the air. The smoke around it shimmered and rippled. She felt its smile. This was not the friendly Fur smile. This smile scared her. It lunged toward her, closing the gap rapidly. She didn’t know what to do.
A noise hit her ears so hard it made her dizzy. The General was on the ground, but he had been able to target his rifle squarely at the Xenai’s back. The Xenai coming toward her stumbled. It wouldn’t be enough to kill it, but it was enough for Shara to instinctively remember some training. She pulled two large twigs from her sack and threw them into the air in front of her face. She pulled the air in around them, spinning them together at such a rapid rate, they broke out into flames. She wrapped them in protective bubbles of air, so they could burn happily, then launched them full speed toward the Xenai, pointy ends first.
One hit the Xenai in the gut. The other hit it in the shoulder. It staggered enough from the hit that it fell and began to slide along the cave floor toward her as the flame took hold. It let out a high pitched scream as the fire spread across its body and began to burn it alive. She watched.
When the screaming stopped, she looked up. The General was using his over-sized rifle as support to get up. She looked around the cave to see the bodies were mostly in pieces. Innards and blood from both sides covered the front half of the cave almost to the ceiling, and out past the cave entrance onto what was now red gress. It must have been a large troop of both kinds of soldiers.
The General made his way to her and slung his rifle across his back. “Your mother will be back fom Century tonight. She would do worse if anyone harmed you,” he said. Shara was oddly comforted by this.
He put his large arms around her and slung her up into his arms. She relaxed into him, as she had so many times before. He moved toward the entrance and Shara could hear the squishing under his feet. She could never return to her mountainous playground, again. She buried her head in his shoulder and whispered to herself, “Jehr-stoh-rah”.
Comments (0)
See all