ROOTS OF THE WORLD
The pinpoint of light that was Corwin and Jabez’s lantern faded amid the stalagmites on the far side of the river. They left Vash with the other lantern, but with three days of travel ahead and no way to refuel it, he left it hooked to his pack for now.
“I’ll use it in an actual emergency.” Vash said to himself, more because he needed to hear a person’s voice in the eerily silent cavern than because it needed to be said. “No use running it dry because I need a night-light.”
He had been traveling for a few hours; he guessed. It was hard to tell the passage of time in the gloomy twilight of the glowmoss. Corwin and Jabez had kept pace with him, for a time, on their side of the river. Eventually, a sheer drop-off to the water below forced them away from the canyon’s edge. At that point, they had all said their last farewells, and Corwin and Jabez followed the cliff to find another way forward.
Vash moved slowly, keeping them in sight for as long as possible. Hating to admit that he just didn’t want to be alone down here.
Vash remembered Iona saying one night in the temple beneath the great Ironwood tree in Ragpicker’s Hollow. As the latest recruit to the Eth Mitaan, Vash felt isolated from the rest of the Masks. He mentioned it to Iona, feeling lonely and isolated.
. Iona said, and although she had smiled, there was a tinge of sadness to it.
Vash chuckled at the irony. In the space of less than a week, he had lost most of his brothers and sisters in the Eth Mitaan, joined a new brotherhood with the Wayfarers, and now he was separated from them.
“If I were a superstitious man, I’d think I was cursed.”
When the dot of light disappeared into the blue-gray gloom, Vash felt an icy shiver creep up his spine. He had been alone in dangerous situations before. The Underlands were something entirely different. A kind of liminal space between the light and life of the world above and the death, silence, and darkness of the shadow.
“All right, Vash.” He muttered to himself, resettling his pack and looking to the path ahead. “No use being broody and philosophical. Save that for when you’re at a tavern and you can blame it on the wine.”
Following the canyon, Vash picked up the pace. His side of the river had a fairly flat area of stone and earth bordering the rushing water. A few stalagmites stretched towards the ceiling high above, but were easy to avoid, even in the low light. The absence of any other sounds was the hard part for him. Aside from his own footsteps and the flow of the river, there was nothing, as though the rock swallowed sound as well as light.
His mind kept trying to trick him into hearing things that weren’t there. Another set of footsteps behind him, or something scurrying among the tall rocks off to his left. Vash would pause occasionally and listen, eventually having to move on when it turned out to be just his imagination.
Beyond the basic paranoia, his stomach continued to rumble. Gnawing on a piece of travel bread kept the hunger from overwhelming him, but he knew eventually he would have to stop and really eat something. Also, his left hand itched and throbbed. Vash had been afraid to really look at it. In the darkness, he could see that several scabs had formed on the palm of his hand, making the skin there rougher. It didn’t really hurt, just felt strange, but he had been around enough magical things to know that some of them had terrible effects that showed up hours or days later.
“I’ll look at it when I have to rest,” Vash told himself, continuing to march forward. “No use worrying about it now, since it isn’t stopping me from traveling.”
He tried not to worry when his Wayfarer medallion sent out brief pulses of healing magic. The itching remained on his palm and Vash willed himself not to scratch or worry the scabs.
The side of the canyon sloped down. Vash could barely feel it. After a few hours of travel, however, Vash found himself walking on the rocky shore of the river. The wide, pitch-black, flow of water moved swiftly, but quietly. Vash couldn’t see any rocks protruding from the water. It was likely that the river was so old that it had worn down any rocks in its way, giving it a deceptively placid look.
Vash paused at the river’s edge, tasting the water using a cupped hand. It was cold, clean, with a faint metallic taste. His Core didn’t pulse any warnings, so Vash filled his water bottle, drank his fill, then refilled the bottle.
“At least there’s water.” Vash said, stoppering the bottle and attaching it to his pack. Then a thought struck him. “Water draws animals, prey. Which then draws predators.”
He sighed. “Even when there’s something good, there’s a downside.”
He moved on, staying on his guard this close to the river. Who knew what he would run into looking for a drink?
Before long, Vash noticed that the dim light was fading. He looked up at the large glowmoss patches on the cave ceiling. The patches faded to almost nothing, a dot here and there, like stars in the deep velvet blackness above.
Stolen novel; please report.
He also realized that he was bone tired.
“Seems like a good enough excuse to make camp, I suppose.” Vash said to himself. He lit the alchemical lamp, bathing the area in a muted yellow light. After a few minutes of searching, he found a small niche that would serve as a campsite. Ringed by high rocky surfaces, the small nook was close enough to the river that he wouldn’t lose his way, but set far enough back that anything casually passing by would not notice him.
With a sigh of relief, Vash slid the straps of his pack off his shoulders. He let out an involuntary groan when he rolled his shoulders. The healing magic from the Wayfarer amulet had done a decent job of muting the worst of the travel soreness. However, with all the injuries and exertion that he had put his body through, there was a limit to what the amulet could do.
“Speaking of injuries,” Vash said, steeling himself. “No use putting it off.”
He knelt beside the lamp and brought his left hand into the light. Vash grimaced at the damage that the soulstone had done when he’d grasped it. A circular scar now dominated his palm. The flesh was rough and thick, like a brand, discolored with a strange grayish hue. Jagged lines radiated out from his palm like branches, wrapping around his wrist and back between his fingers.
Vash flexed his fingers experimentally. The scars did not seem to affect his dexterity. Aside from some itching and a slight numbness close to the scars themselves, they might as well have been tattoos or some stray dirt that marked his hand.
“Maybe it’s just some sort of bruise.” Vash mused, examining the markings. “I know I’m not that lucky, though. This will probably come back to bite me in the ass when I least expect it.”
He shook his head, resolving to visit a healer as soon as he could, but deciding it wasn’t worth worrying about at the moment. Sifting through his pack, Vash found a packet of trail rations and his .
The packet contained a modest meal of dried meat, travel bread, and a hunk of hard cheese. Not exactly a feast, but enough to keep him going. Vash tucked into the meat and cheese while flipping through the . The first few pages he opened to dealt with adventuring in the Underlands.
“Convenient.” Vash said around a mouthful of cheese. “Every time I open this book, it goes right to what I need. I wonder if there’s some sort of enchantment on it, or it’s just laid out really well.”
“That seems a bit melodramatic.” Vash said, scanning the margins for any helpful notes that the previous owner had seen fit to scribble.
Vash paused in chewing to take that in. “Well, that’s alarming.”
He skipped ahead. Warnings about the dangers of adventuring in the deep places of the world didn’t really help if you were already there. The next section went into the basic ecology of the Underlands, and the first bit was actually pertinent to his current situation.
“That’s a relief.” Vash said, popping another piece of dried beef into his mouth and taking a drink from his water bottle to soften it up. A small note in the margin gave extra advice, as usual.
“Really?” Vash muttered around his mouthful of dried dinner. “It’s so inviting down here. I can’t imagine anything dangerous.” He was exhausted, frustrated, and several small wounds were making themselves known now that he had stopped moving. For a moment, he considered putting the book back into his pack and grabbing what sleep he could. Then, one of the margin notes further down the page caught his eye.
Vash blinked in surprise. The helpful notes in the margins were one thing, but the explicit instructions made him suspicious that this wasn’t just some helpful adventurer’s notebook. He stared down at the faded ink for a long time. Finally, he decided he was overthinking the situation. “Fuck it, it’s a book. What could happen?”
Flipping through the book, Vash came to page 374. It was one of several blank pages provided by the to allow readers to take notes. Like the margins throughout the rest of the book, the same cramped writing filled this page, along with a drawing of a river canyon and its surrounding lands.
Squinting at the drawing, Vash saw the name scrawled at one end of the canyon.
“No, that’s just too convenient.” Vash said, giving the book a suspicious glare.
The book remained silent. No further instructions to turn pages or helpful explanations. Just a map and a few landmarks noted along the river route north to the falls.
“It could just be a coincidence.” Vash said after looking over the map for a few minutes. “A delver from the area would want to put some information about the local Underlands. Makes sense, right?”
The book didn’t answer.
“It’s worth taking a look, even if it’s wrong or out of date. Having some idea of what’s ahead could be helpful.” He said, trying to convince himself. Mostly, he didn’t want a reason to turn out the lamp. The glow of his little light was comforting against the deep darkness that surrounded him.
“I’ll just read a little bit,” Vash rationalized. “To get ready for the journey tomorrow. Then I’ll get some sleep.”
Vash rubbed his eyes and groaned. “Gods dammit.”