Chapter 7
It took me a couple of days to collect myself and resume my training. And I continued going down, for four years, and this last day is the one that I would like to talk about. Before I move to it, let me tell you a little about what happened in these 4 years. First, I learned how to use a shortsword, a longsword, and a dagger. Next, I grew closer to Vos and his family, I even helped take care of little Vixi from time to time, and as I grew closer to them, the more I told Vos, I told him all about my powers, about what I can do with them and how I use them, I told him how they grew, and they grew by the day. After 4 years of my powers growing, the portals I could open grew bigger, and were no longer contained to my hands, I could send them a good distance away before opening them, and that is how I started stealing whole barrels of food from the markets. Then I learned more and more about how he ruled, the people underground loved him, that much I knew, but as I looked closer, I realized that he worshipped his people, that he would do anything to keep them safe, and that is what he did, anyone that suspected what was going on right under the city, he killed, someone of his people turned against him, he killed, he had no mercy for those that he deemed dangerous to what he has built, and everyone turned a blind eye, because they didn't what to face the consequences of having this little slice of haven ruined and destroyed. But I could not, the more my powers grew the more I felt the deaths, and down there in the closed space, it was as if each person that died lingered, that they grew restless and the I could feel their deaths being bounced inside this large coffin and I take no more, especially that now I occasionally see ghosts. And that is the day I am going to talk about, the day I left the underground village.
I came down as normal, no one knew what I was planning, except Murtok, and I went to the training room as always, and as luck would have it, Vos is the person that would be teaching me today. But instead of taking one of the blades and fighting him, that has become my training, I told him we need to talk, and so we sat at the seats and he waited while I was trying to get the courage. Finally I said, "I cannot keep coming down here, I came today to tell you that I was leaving, that I will not come back here again."
Calmly he asked, "why is that, do you not enjoy it here, do you not want to continue training, do you not have friends, I know my family considers you a friend."
"It is not that…sigh… my patron is Lord of Death and Darkness, and here in a cave that has never known light, that has housed darkness since the day it was just a hole in the ground, death is so much more powerful. My powers are getting more powerful, more by the day, and the more powerful I get the more death I feel, and here in a cave of darkness, death is multiplied. This is something I haven't told you yet, I see ghosts… it started recently, a year at most, they are cold, and not normal cold, it is the cold of the grave, and they speak to me, and when they touch me I can feel everything that they feel, I see their death, and see what is keeping them in the land of the living, I am not powerful enough to do anything about it, and I am sure I see but a fraction of their real number. As I grow stronger, I will start seeing more and more, I have no doubt that this cave is full of ghost. They like the darkness; it is pale imitation to the peace of real death but it is the closest they could get. So, I have to leave, I cannot stay here, it is torture for me, you could never understand."
"I could never keep you here against your will, not after everything you told me about your powers, but you are not asking, and I am telling you, if you leave before saying goodbye to the family, not even the Holy Father can protect you from my wife's wrath."
I sigh a sigh of relief, I do not know what I expected, so I say, "you understand that I can never enter here again, especially with my powers getting stronger," and with his nod of understanding that I was doing something radical, but he had helped me more than I could ever mention, so I held my dagger, use it to cut open my palm, and when the first drop of blood touches the sand, I promise, "by the blood coursing through my veins, if you ever need my help, you just call, and I will come."
I see that I had caught him of guard, a promise on one's blood is a promise that can never be betrayed, if I do anything that goes against the promise, I risk my blood rebelling against me. So, he shook my bloody hand, and it held everything that he could not say, and then he led me to his house to say goodbye.
Now while I am saying goodbye to people who had become family, this chapter will continue not from my point of view, but from the point of view of the most important person in this book, she is the reason that I am what I am today, she is the reason for the rest of the story, without her I would have never left Agrdis, I would have stayed and died there content with the friends I made. She led me down this path, the path of these books. I would be writing her experience, because today she is no longer alive, but before she died she told me the story, the story of this same day, the day we both said goodbye, and found each other.
Today is the last day we are staying in the forest, by the time we come back there would be no sign we were ever here, and we would move to riverside, so what would happen if we are late? They would leave us here, and we would follow them to riverside, if we could track them that is. It has been known for some to just leave and never comeback, those few that prefer the city to better cleaner wilds. My mother had just remembered the night before that it would be better if we had some more supplies, it will be a while before we reach our next city, and because we are never allowed to leave camp alone, my mother invited my father, and they brought me with them for a fun family outing, and my father was a hunter, one of the best in the tribe, so we would have no trouble following them, and my mother being a shaman helped pick out the spot for our next camp, so even if dad cannot follow them, mom knows where they are, so I was relaxed.
We went through the outer city, that place raises my hackles although it is outside the city nearer to the wilds there is something wrong with it, the people that inhabit it spread their sickness inside of it. So I was happy when we went through the gates and through to the markets inside. We got everything that mom wanted, then we went and spoiled ourselves, we ate some delights, we had fun, bought some trinkets, and half the day was gone. We would have to travel by night if we wish to catch up with the others, ugh how I hate traveling by night. We went back to the gate, and there we had to pay a tax to take what we bought outside of the city. Once we were a good way away from the gate, where the guards that never venture to the outer city, I started feeling eyes upon us, eyeing the goods we bought and judging how much money we have left, mom was used to eyes staring at her all hours of the day and night, so she wasn't bothered by them. Dad was different, he was a hunter, he felt the eyes and didn't like them, so he picked up the pace. The sun was almost halfway down, and darkness was starting to assert itself on the world, and that is when we happened upon a narrow alley, when we were halfway through people blocked our path, and started coming our way, and I could see the daggers and knifes they held, we turned around and we found the same thing. There was no way out of this alley, the only thing here were a few crates thrown to the side. My father acted quickly, he hid me in one of the crates and mom closed the lid, and they both told me, "do not move no matter what happens."
So like the good girl that I was I stayed there and never moved never opened my mouth while it all happened all I did was look through a tiny crack in its side, the people came nearer by the moment, my father had drawn his own hunting knife, he wasn't a warrior he was a hunter, we do not have warriors we like the peace and quiet, and to train warriors is to break that peace and quit. Suddenly they were on my parents, they tried to fight back, my dad was holding them back, but he was one man against sic attackers. He held his ground for a good while, but then one of the attackers a soulless monster struck my mom with his knife, she yelled and fell to the floor, that yell broke me in half, and then my father turned around to see what has happened, and when he saw mom, his face fell and before he could scream some soulless city dweller struck his head he fell right there next mom, the moment I saw dad fall everything in me shattered, there was nothing left except the tears going down my face. I stayed in my box crying until the attackers took everything valuable that we had and ran. Slowly, after what felt like years, I came out of the box and went to my parents, I found my mother still alive struggling to take a breath, and I launched myself at her, I fell at her bloody body and hugged her, I wouldn't have let go if she didn't push me a little to look at my face. Then she reached into her shirt pulled of her shaman pendant and she put it in my hand, I understood what was happening, so I didn't close my hand around it, because doing that would mean mom was dying, it would mean that I was all alone in this world, with no way to go back to my tribe. But she forced my hand closed around the bloody pendant, and continued holding me until I saw the light leave her eyes, and her hand fall lifeless from mine.
I stayed there for a long time studying the pendant, it is made of oak and on the front there is a carving of a deer my mom's spirit animal, and on the other side a small hole was carved inside it there are three hair strands tied together, mine, my mom's and my dad's. I couldn't take my eyes of it, the last thing my parents left me, but I could feel many eyes looking at me. I knew that if I stayed here someone would come and finish the job, and I knew that is not what my parents would want, they would want me to survive, so that is what I was determined to do, I pushed everything aside and just started walking I do not know where to, I just walk and now it was fully night. The more I walk in this outer city the more eyes I feel looking at me, no matter how much I wanted to I could not keep the fear away. After a while of walking, I started to notice that the more I walked in a certain direction the less people watched me, it was as if they are afraid of what is in that direction, but I continued thinking what could be worse than what had just happened, even I died now I would have tried, and my parents wouldn't be sad. So, I continued in that certain direction until I could hear those brave few that had still been following me start running away, and that is when I started to fear the choice I had chosen, but I couldn't turn back now, I knew that much, and then I started hearing noises, feet dragging, muttering, and scratching to say the least. Suddenly a monstrosity appeared in front of me, I looked at it and screamed and screamed seemingly paralyzed and then it just disappeared. As soon as I collected myself I started running, until I reached an alley and though to hide in it for the night, and once I turned the corner to go inside the alley, I saw at the end of the alley a boy, with hair so dark that I could not see it, and a skin so pale it could have been glowing, when he noticed me a raven the same shade of darkness as his hair landed on his shoulder and they both tilted their heads and examined me. The boy then spoke, "come sit, you look like you need it." For whatever reason I trusted him, and so I went to the end of the alley and sat on the floor.
Now I would like to tell you what I had just saw. I had just came up, the goodbye lasted until dinner, and when I came up it was dark, so I set up my usual perimeter of twisted, but unlike every other day I spend on the street, today someone came near the twisted, and Murtok managed to stop the twisted from touching her. Then Murtok went around making sure none are coming after her, and when he came back and landed on my shoulder that is when I noticed her. A girl, blood covering her clothes but none appeared from her, her hair a deep shade of purple reaching all the way down her back, on her obvious run it got messed up and was covering her face, her skin is the color of bronze of a person that spends all of their time under the sun. But that didn't catch my eye, in fact nothing caught my eye, the smell is what captured my attention, I smelled sweetness and lavender, fear and pain, so intense that I couldn't even smell the blood on her. So I invited her to sit, and when she sat, I asked "may I ask whose blood is that." All notes of fear went away from her smell, and the pain intensified tenfold, and she began crying, after a while she answered with a voice barely audible and between sobs, "my parents'." Those two words and how they were said stuck with me to this day, the love, the pain the longing, and somewhere deep inside me I felt those things, but I knew that I have to help here in anyway I can, and Murtok knew the same thing.
Back to her now. Those two words, "my parents", made everything that I was holding back come bubbling up, I put my face in my hands and continued to cry. Then the boy's raven came and sat at my shoulder and wrapped his wings around my head and started making a comforting sound in my ear. Then the boy sat down next to me and pulled me to his chest and I started crying harder for reasons I didn't understand. For an hour I stayed like that letting everything spill from my eyes and they didn't say anything just giving me their comforting presence, then he said, "I do not know who my parents are, if they are alive or dead, so I do not know what you are feeling, but I lost someone when I was very young, and I remember part of the pain and longing I felt when she left, and I never want to go through that again," then he just sat beside me telling me without speaking that he is not leaving that he will help me. The way he spoke the soft tones in his voice that told me he knows what I am going through made me trust him more, and his raven made me feel better if not by much. He was still next to me when I stopped crying, and his raven opened his wings when it saw that I was feeling better, and when he saw that he said, "I have a place you could get cleaned up, it is out of the city, so if you would like to do that tell me." I told him that I would like that, but before we could get up, I saw another of these monsters and my eyes grew big, I wanted to shout to warn him, but I couldn't I was once again paralyzed by it. He must have seen my eyes go wild, because he turned around and with a look it just disappeared, the he shouted, at the raven that is, "I thought you said you took care of all of them," then he nodded and said, "I know, they must be out in force today, we better get to the cave." I started laughing at the absurdity of my situation, my parents dead, I have no way to go back to my tribe, I am with a boy that speaks with ravens who lives in a cave, and by the way the boy and his raven take out monsters in their spare time. I must have looked like a maniac covered in blood, laughing my head off, because the boy looked concerned and asked me if I was ok. Once I got the laughing under control, I nodded to him and then started crying again. He looked sorry, but said, "we have to get to the cave it is the best place to be when they are this many, I am sorry you have to do this now, but it is either come with me or stay here alone." I nodded at him once more and we made our way to this mysterious cave.
I did not expect the cave to be so high up a mountain, it took a toll for me to climb it being this exhausted, but once I entered, I found out that it was worth it. At first it was nothing special but once he led me inside where in the day the sun barely reaches it was beautiful, the glowing mushrooms in all colors. He led me down the right tunnel, all the way through until we reached a room that had only blue mushrooms and at the back wall there I saw a small river of fresh water. He then said, "the water is cold, but if you would like there is a bathtub for when I would like to heat water whenever I want to take a hot bath."
"Thank you, but I am used to the cold water, I prefer it…but…" and here I looked at my clothes the only pieces of clothes I have, and he seemed to understand. And so he said, "if you want you can borrow something from me, and tomorrow if you decide to stay, we could find you something more suitable in the city." I nodded my head to embarrassed to speak. Seeming to realize that, he put his hand in the air and suddenly clothes and a bar of soap appeared in it. Dumfounded, my jaw dropped all I could say was, "how… what… where…ummm…how?" He seemed amused at my reaction and all he said was, "you saw me talk to a raven, and banish monsters, you really though that is all I can do? No matter, when you are finished here, go back to the main intersection and then go down the left tunnel, then go into the white room at your second right," I nodded still unable to speak, "oh and this is a brand new bar of soap, now I think I better leave you to it."
I took my sweet time cleaning myself, I scrubbed so hard trying to remove all traces of blood that my skin turned pink, I did the same with the clothes that I was wearing, and I also cleaned the pendant as much as I could. Finally, I came out of the stream and got dressed, then I followed his instructions and reached the white room, where I found him making me a bed of hay and blankets. He turned around and smiled at me, and he said, "this is the best I can do, it is not silk and feathers but it is all I have, I will leave you to rest, if you need anything don't hesitate to wake me, I am in the room at the left when entering the yellow room." All I could say to the kindness this stranger had shown me, "thank you for everything, I can never repay you," gesturing at the bed I continued, "this is perfect I need nothing more."
When he was at the entrance of my room I realized something and blurted out, "where is your raven," he looked back and said, "keeping an eye for any more of the monsters if they wish to come back tonight, I see the questions in your eyes, rest tomorrow ask as you wish."
And that is what I did, I lay my head on my new mattress and instantly fell asleep, as if I was one of the dead.