The days passed like molasses - soft, sweet, and thick with the unbearable heat and humidity of late spring. Every passing hour brought new challenges and new successes. Speaking was still difficult for Lidiyana, but her hand outpaced her mouth with regards to writing, and that was enough for her. She spent much of her days attempting to learn new words and learning to walk, and when she slept she slept in the study where she first woke up - Gareth said that it was for her own safety, in case any complications occurred.

Walking still defied her even more than speaking. Even as her slurring, unordered words became a more consistent stutter, the act of walking was difficult for more than a minute at a time. By the end of each attempt, she was thoroughly exhausted, left drained and empty even with Gareth’s support. Still she put every ounce of effort into it and by the end of four weeks she could even manage to walk three laps around the house before she had to rest for a long while.

Gareth would leave each week “to the town” on the horse, Svetlan. The town was largely an abstraction in Lidiyana’s mind; Gareth had explained to her that a town or a city was a bit like a house, in that people lived there, but it had many houses within it, and the people who lived there often worked there as well. He also corrected the early misconception that the city was precisely like a house, interconnected by many hallways. He informed her that those were called roads and streets, like those that lead away from the house, which made far more sense in Lidiyana’s mind. It would be an awful waste of wood to make such a large structure.

When Gareth returned he always brought back something new for her to try or see or taste, even if it was small. One week, he brought back a bottle with a mixture of herbs and oil to go with their bread, another week a few sweet pears to eat, another a wooden puzzle to occupy her time. He was good to her, in that sense. He also occupied her by instructing her in the art of cooking, where she could practice and manage simpler tasks

And thaumaturgy, that too took much of her fascination - in a purely theoretical fashion, of course, but it fascinated her nonetheless. It made sense to her that she was studying it before the accident. The concept alone was simple, and captivating: venture into the World Below, and return to the World Above with a boon or new companion. The sensation of returning to her old notes on the Underworld was almost exactly akin to what she felt when she first awoke with Gareth.

However, in other fashions, Lidiyana felt increasingly unfulfilled. She learned more of love and lovers and she felt it for Gareth. At the very least she understood his physical charms quite deeply. His strong arms, his warm touch, those were almost omnipresent in her life and she appreciated that greatly. On the other hand, when she hinted at a want for more physicality from him - anything more than a touch - Gareth shirked from her. Retreated.

And this perplexed Lidiyana more than anything. She'd make it apparent that she wanted to embrace him totally, and he’d turn himself away. She’d try to kiss him, and he’d pull away. The more she read, the more she felt like she was doing something wrong. Was it her stitches? Her inability to speak properly?

She read so much of sharing a bed with a lover, of sharing their embrace in sleep, and that sounded so delightful to her.

It irked her, so, one night, she asked him before she slept.

“G-G-areth, l-l-llllove. S-s-sometimes you d-don’t l-love m-m-me. Y-y-you don’t l-love me ph-ph-physically. I w-want that fr-from y-y-you,” she said. Her stutter always got worse when she had to say something that scared her.

Gareth was taken aback, and leaned away from her in his chair.

“A-am I-I t-too uh-ugly f-for you?”

“No, no!” he exclaimed immediately, “My love, you were gorgeous before your accident, and you are gorgeous now.”

He sat at her side, then cradled her head.

“I’m delicate with you because I’m afraid of hurting you. Of accidentally making one of the stitches come out.”

“B-b-but-”

She grunted, and sat up. It wasn’t a good day for speaking.

“H-h-hhhold.”

“I can’t-”

“Hh-hhold!” she insisted, throwing her arms around him. He reluctantly returned the favor, then fell into it. He kissed her head.

“Ssss-sssleep. Ssss-sssleep.”

She leaned into him as she reclined.

“It wouldn’t be proper, even as lovers, to share a bed like this. People would think-”

She was too exhausted that night to speak further. It seemed like such a chore, at times, such a labor. They had devised other methods of communication besides just speaking and writing of course. A few simple signs with her hands, so that she could keep in touch. She raised her index and middle finger together, and put her thumb into the center of the other two fingers, then pushed into his hand enough that he’d know.

Please. Please. Please. I want to know what it’s like.

He relented, and fell into sleep. Gareth was restless even as he fell to sleep first. He tossed, turned, and murmured without end or meaning. She let herself sleep. She reasoned that it must be an acquired taste to sleep with someone else, even if she enjoyed so many other parts of Gareth.

When she awoke, Gareth was gone. He had left while she slept, but as always he had been kind enough to lay everything out for her for the day. Breakfast and lunch were in brown paper packages on the bedside, the chairs strategically spaced so she could read at the desk and make her way to the bathroom without issue, and her books already laid out on her bed so she could read them there as well. That day was quiet. Lidiyana listened to the birds and spring rain as she read further into her assigned reading. Gareth had made the argument that the rudiments of Vema thaumaturgy would prove less strenuous than the Pagoran schools, and so he had given her dozens of books on Vema theory and history.

It was terribly difficult to understand, considering she had lost most of her knowledge of Vema, but she still tried her hardest to decipher it, translation dictionary and pocket dictionary spread out all around her. She didn’t ever dare to attempt to speak Vema - she was having enough difficulty butchering her first language, and sounding out these foreign words seemed like a fool's errand to her.

This was something she could distract herself with from the coldness of the previous night. That, and breakfast and lunch were both delicious. Gareth seemed to love to cook for her, to make for her, and that was something Lidiyana could relish alongside the food. Even cold, it was good, and each came with it’s own little love note.

I apologize for not being able to bring it hot.

I hope you’ll forgive me.

- G

She forgave him.

When Gareth returned, she was at the desk, and he was carrying two brown packages, and he smiled deep into Lidiyana, and the cold went with it. He hugged her close, and she laughed.

“Lidiyana,” he said, “I’ve brought you a gift - one you can open now, and the other is for later.”

He put the larger of the two into her hands.

“Oh-oh, my!” she said, surprised.

“I know I haven’t been the best to you. You deserve better. More things like last night.”

She nodded, not fully sure if last night was a good thing. She wanted more, but if he was so offset as to have nightmares she couldn’t be sleeping next to him. She had to care for him as much as he had to care for her. That much she could definitely gather from her reading.

“Go on, open it,” he urged.

She daintily opened the rustling paper, undoing its folds.

Inside was a long, carefully kept piece of wood. It was a dark, reddish wood that was polished and kempt to the point of looking black in places. At its very top it flared to a crook which was carefully carved into an elongated, hammer-like shape.

“A-a c-c-cane?”

“Yes,” he said, “I’m sorry it took a while - I had it commissioned to your measurements, so it would be perfect for you. So, would you like to try it.”

She took the head in her hand and put the end to the floor before leaning on it as she got up. Now with three limbs on the floor, she began to walk about.

It was perfect.

Lidiyana did a short lap about the room as she laughed. It was almost easy now - the exhaustion was so much less that walking may as well have been flying now.

Eventually she landed back on her bed once her legs finally tired and began to ache again. Gareth looked over to her.

“Your thoughts?”

“I-i-it’s g-gr-great. I c-c-c-c-c-”

She paused to compose herself.

“I can’t th-thank y-you, e-e-e-nough, l-l-l-luh-”

He walked over to her.

“You don’t need to say it,” Gareth said, “I already know.”

He sat beside her and paused as their heads came close. He kissed Lidiyana briefly and stiffly on her lips.

Even if it was stiff it was a kindness she could accept. He recognized the physicality of the love she wanted. That was enough for her.

“I d-don’t know i-if I-I c-c-c-can l-l-love you e-e-e-nough f-f-f-or wh-wh-what y-y-y-ou d-do for m-me.”

“You do, Lidiyana. You are always enough for me.”

She leaned into him, his chest and soft jacket cradling his head.

“Tonight, I want you and I to attempt something basic with thaumaturgy. Just to the antechamber.”

She could almost feel her eyes beam with the idea of it.

“C-c-can we? G-Gareth, I c-c-can’t e-even i-i-imagine.”

“I mean, did you see what you just did? You were practically running laps,” he laughed, “And if you get tired, I’ll just help you back. It’ll be short, and we can have dinner after.”

She nodded, eager.

“I-I’d l-l-love it.”

“We’ll be going in the basement for the first time,” he said, smiling.

He stood, and didn’t help her up - and she was glad. With the help of the cane, she got to her feet with greater ease than she ever had before, she followed him out of her room and down the stairs. Gareth took a storm lantern from the downstairs table, lit it with a match from his pocket, and brought it with him. Then he made a turn down the hall at the end of the stairs, to the door at the far end, which he opened and gestured for her to continue down. She took the candle from him and descended the rickety stairs into the depths.

The basement itself was nondescript, unfinished except for the dark red brick walls and dirt floor. Off to one side, there was another door, but other than that, it was bare.

“There are a few rules I have to insist on regarding the basement. The first is that you do not come down here to practice thaumaturgy without me until you’ve made a full recovery. The second is that you don’t go into the other part of the basement.”

“Wh-wh-why?”

“There’s mold in there, and frankly I think rats have made a nest too. Not anything agreeable for a lady, much less one with a poor constitution recovering from a very long procedure.”

He had explained it all before. The other doctors had given up on her when she suddenly fell into a coma after being hit on the head in an accident. He knew her from his college, and had been courting her for a while and Gareth, the brilliant surgeon that he was, devised a procedure to bring her back to health. Lidiyana wasn’t frankly all that interested in the anatomy of it, but she did recognize that it was all very romantic.

“For the Vema methodologies, we must sit face to face,” he noted.

Lidiyana nodded, and sat on the cold floor. Gareth put the lantern between them as he wher.

“I’ve taken the liberty of memorizing this particular incantation for you, so you don’t have to lead or stutter through it. Oh, and we must close our eyes. Now, just listen to my words...”

She let the darkness and his voice take her along. The syllables he spoke were foreign to her; she could barely follow what he was saying even with her concentration on them, so she stopped concentrating.

Her mind began to wander from the place of the basement, to other considerations. The sensation of the ground beneath her and the events of the previous night flooded her, yet they came with a sense of calm; of reflection - and they were not so terrifying as before.

After three repetitions, there was a clear, loud tone like the chiming of a bell. Her eyes flew open, and behind Gareth there was a new door covered with a shiny red paint. Its handle was a burnished brass color. She smiled at Gareth.

“L-l-l-looks like it - it w-worked.”

He handed her the lantern;

“I’ll go first, just in case,” he said, helping her up in spite of her new gift, “But I will give you the honor of the lantern, of course.”

“Th-thank y-you, Gar,” she said, walking to the door with newfound ease. He opened it, and she could hardly contain her excitement. The stairs were a dark black stone, shiny and polished by the lamplight.

“That cane was the right choice, hm?”

She nodded, but also made note of the fact that her exhaustion was still mounting, albeit at a slower rate than before. They descended, step by step into the antechamber, and this new memory, the interconnection of it all, was more exciting to her than anything else she had experienced. It made her heart race and it took all of her will not to take two steps, three steps at a time, to plummet downwards into the inky black and explore it wholesale without Gareth’s aid.

But Lidiyana was patient, and stayed behind Gareth, resolving to not run past him. She would earn her reward soon enough.

They had covered some one-hundred steps before they reached the first platform - a flat section of blackstone that stretched about as wide and tall as the basement they had come from, and the first indicator that they were approaching the threshold. Off to one side another set of darkened stairs continued to go down at an even steeper angle.

“I-I’d l-l-like a ssss-ssecond t-to catch-ch m-my br-br-breath,” she said, leaning up against one of the walls. Gareth stopped, giving her time to examine them closer. The walls of the platform had been carefully carved, thin, spiraling lines that started in the center and formed into complex intersections. She could tell that there was a pattern, and she reckoned that if she were more mathematically inclined she could probably predict the locations of each next intersection via the angles and the previous one.

If a human had made them, she would have been impressed at their skill. She knew better, though.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” asked Gareth, noting her interest, “I believe the Vema call them xatiq-lines.”

“H-h-hatik?”

“Xatiq,” he corrected, “Your pronunciation is atrocious. A term for lampads. I believe the formal translation would be outsider.”

She nodded. She extended three fingers on her left hand, upright.

Ready.

They continued to descend. Lidiyana had absolutely lost any sense of depth at this point - and she knew that there was indeed no point to it. Space stopped making sense around halfway through the antechamber anyways. The stairs were endless, monotonous, though with the aid of the cane it became far easier to find her way down. More thin, carved lines appeared in the walls, spiraling in and out of the illumination.

Then, the ceiling began to rise away from them, rapidly becoming further and further away from their heads. The stairs soon after gave way to another blackstone platform, but there was no further descent here. Instead, on one wall, there was a double-door with the same shiny red paint, a standout from the smoothness of its surroundings. The ceiling here was nowhere to be seen; it had long disappeared into an inky, black nothingness above them, extending into forever, above the house, above the trees in the forest. If it weren’t for the lack of stars, it would have been indistinguishable from the night sky, a pit into the cosmos itself.

“This is it, love. That’s the threshold, right there.”

She nodded, panting slightly from the exertion. It still took a toll on her. Gareth had noticed, obviously, and put his arms around her, supporting her.

“Are you ready to head back up?”

“N-no,” she said, staring at the door, its intricacies, the bright, silver handle. It tempted her in the same fashion as the stairs. She wanted to burst through, to jump to the other side for only an instant, and then run back up the stairs, the reward of the other side, of this terrible Underworld unveiled to her before her return to the surface.

“I-I w-want to g-g-go thr-thr-thr,” she said, “Through, t-to th-the o-uh-o-ther side.”

“Lidiyana, no,” Gareth replied, “It’s dangerous. I don’t want to put you into a situation where you’d be over-exerted or anything like that. You’re still fragile.”

“J-just,” she said, hesitating. It was always so difficult to get the words out in situations like this, when she was stressed.

“Just th-three st-st-steps out. J-just three.”

He looked at her with disapproval.

“It’s much more dangerous with two people."

“Onl-only three. Pl-pl-ease.”

“Fine,” he sighed, “But we’ll have to rush out.”

He grabbed at his coat pocket anxiously.

She walked to the door, the echoes from the stamping of her cane seeming to bounce forever off of the black, inverted sky-pit. She put the cane under her arm, and opened the door. The other side was glorious. Equally high in its ceiling, she could see out to a set of stone pillars, each as wide and extending sky-ward, into the inky black. Just barely, she could make out a set of doors, these ones hewn of the same stone as their surroundings, on each of the pillars, and just beyond them were more pillars, and the same off to the side.

One step.

She took another step forward, fascinated, Gareth shortly following. A faint rumbling came from down the hall - she could not tell if it was the echo of her own footstep, or some inscrutable thing down the hall. She paused.

Another rumble, this one drawn out.

It wasn’t her footstep. She took one more step forward.

The stone beneath her foot made a distinctive, complete thunk as it sunk into the ground beneath her foot. She froze, as did Gareth.

“Lidiyana,” he said very carefully and quietly, “Do not move. You understand?”

It sunk deeper, almost throwing her off balance. Gareth came in behind her holding her up as another rumble came, even louder than the last, and more drawn out.

“This is a shortcut,” he noted, “It isn’t supposed to show up this early, though. Ugh, nevermind it.”

She shuddered, as he attempted to lift her up, and the floor gave way beneath her as he did, shuddering down at a steep incline to reveal a smooth ramp into the inky dark. The rumbling came again, this time to their left, her gaze shooting over to it. Something tall stood on two legs at the edge of their lamplight, and Gareth’s grip on her belt faltered.

“Lidiyana!” he yelled down to her.

She stumbled, scrabbled, then fell, yelling incoherently as she fumbled for a sense of direction down the steep ramp, sliding into the dark. She could control her descent, barely, slowing it until she reached a halt at the very bottom, a small room, this one made of a white-pink granite, cut far more crudely than the black stone above. To her right was darkened hall, deep black. Her lamp and cane were miraculously intact, though the bell of the lamp had acquired a crack through its glass structure.

“Gareth!” she screamed up, trying to see any sign of him.

“Gareth!”

There was no reply.

She stared back at the dark hallway, then back at the ramp. She tried to scrabble, get the stone to answer her, to force it to accept her ascent.

And the stone refused her feeble limbs.

Lidiyana turned, and began down the other hall, and then she began to cry, and make a horrible, high-pitched keening noise. Phlegm came from her nose, tears from her eyes, her stitches aching with utter and complete pain. She screamed, this time wordlessly.

She could not name why she was crying, why it hurt so much for her - and she would not name it for a long time.

When she did, she would call it a fear of being alone.