Micah

Several weeks passed, time speeding by as Micah pushed himself to do as much as he could handle. The days took on a blurred quality, only differentiated by sleep.

He meditated each morning per Firenze’s instructions — the first step to achieving the ohugr mindset — and had a run through the caverns, somewhat restricted but adequate for getting his heart going. He had also established a fitness regimen that supplemented his training with Firenze, who provided strigamyr lessons as often as he was able, but Micah had still more time and energy, which he poured into his study of alchemy, recording sigils in the notebook given to him by Gaillard. He took up a couple hours volunteering in the recovery cavern, caring for the ill fae and absorbing as much as he could from the healers. Having finished the book on herblore, he amassed a small collection of books taken from Gaillard’s clandestine lab, which he read when he had time, forgoing sleeping time he knew he should be taking advantage of.

He felt stretched to his limits physically and mentally, and he loved every second of it, even though in the back of his mind he knew this pattern would catch up to him eventually, probably sooner rather than later.

When asked by Gaillard or Allie, he was careful to play down just how much he was taking on, but he could feel it starting to wear on him steadily. If he had stopped to think about it, he might have realized that he hadn’t thought about sex in days and his invasive thoughts were minimal, both pushed aside in favor of the pressing present. But he did not slow down to consider this, and continued focusing the unrest of his spirit on his external circumstances instead.

The inevitable interruption to his routine came one day as he was working in the lab, copying a new sigil as he chatted with Fizz, who waited for a thick forest-green fluid to distill in a complicated latticework of glass.

“I’m just itching to try out these new skills, to see how effective they really are,” he said to the fay.

“Don’t be disappointed when it turns out it’s easier in theory than in practice,” Fizz advised.

“I won’t,” Micah replied, closing the notebook and slipping it in his tunic. He had been careful to keep it on him at all times since Gaillard had begun adding more dangerous alchemical sigils to its pages, with the caveat that if the mage found the book lying around where anyone could get to it, he would completely suspend all alchemy lessons. Micah took the warning as seriously as it had been intended.

Fizz was about to say something when, without warning, books and items began falling off the shelves around them, shattering or scattering over the ground as it started to rumble and shake, as if a cavern nearby was enduring a dragon’s tantrum. Towers of tomes tumbled down. They attempted to save a couple glass things from crashing to the floor, but could barely keep to their own feet.

The shaking ceased after a few seconds, and within another minute, Micah saw soldiers running by the lab entrance, toward the source of the rumbling quake. He and Fizz left the lab to join the others investigating the incident, which had come from the direction of the gardens.

People were already clustered around the entrance to the garden caverns, blocking his view of the pits. There was a frozen air of shock hanging over them like a winter snowfall, worried murmurs on their lips as they cast fearful eyes on the gardens, or what remained of them.

Micah edged his way through the crowd, apologizing as he went, and finally broke into the second row of onlookers, where he found himself looking over a fay’s shoulder at what had been the Vanguard’s most promising source of food. Dismay trickled coldly down his spine.

The three gardens, arranged so neatly in a triangle, had collapsed and fallen into an enormous sinkhole that slid down into caverns deeper and darker than the dreams of primordial titans. Wasted plants, heavy with fruit, were scattered in the remaining rocks and dirt, still sliding and tumbling into the inky blackness.

Micah inched his way closer, watching his footing on the loose, sand-like dirt around the gardens.

Allie was crouched next to the pit, head buried in her hands. Gaillard stood nearby, assessing the damage with a tight look of misery, his arms crossed over his chest.

He looked up as Micah approached, and said softly to him, “This is going to change some things.”

Micah gave a sidelong glance at Allie, whose head lifted out of her hands. The look on her face was new to him.

She squared her shoulders and said, loud enough for anyone in the vicinity to hear, “In the interest of conserving food stores, rations are going to be tight for a bit until we can figure out a way to replace the gardens with another source of food. We’ll go down there soon to see if there’s anything salvageable, even if just seeds, so we can start again.” She stood, back straight, and faced them all.

“Geir?” she called into the crowd. “Geir? No? You, find Geir and ask him to get in contact with our Sitis runner to check the status of that caravan delivery,” she instructed a young ljosalfar, sending him off.

“Hannen,” she said, nodding at a wild-haired undar, “assemble a small hunting party and go aboveground, away from the walls -- meat if you can, but whatever else you can find to feed the ranks: roots, berries, edibles. Be careful.”

He nodded brusquely and turned on his heel.

“Hannen, wait -- Micah, you look awful,” Allie said, turning her attention to him.

“Gee, thanks,” he returned.

“You’ve been learning some things about the local plantlife, right?”

He nodded.

“Go with the hunting party. You seem like you could use a break from the caves.”

Hannen nodded to Micah and beckoned him to follow before turning again and walking through the crowd of people who parted to let them through. The fay didn’t bother saying anything to him.

Micah stayed silent and followed, feeling slighted and irritable. Hannen’s attitude was nothing new; most of the Sidheans tended to ignore him outside of the core group, Allie, and Fizz. He tried to let it go but was painfully aware of his ostracization.

Within fifteen minutes, they had acquired two more people: a giant of a fay named Bewul whose face was as impassive and angular as a mountain, and a portly, amiable fay who introduced himself as Claudien. Bewul and Hannen were silent, but Claudien kept up a steady stream of small-talk with Micah as Hannen led their small group to the surface. He chatted away cheerfully, without reservation, and Micah appreciated the simple company of someone who didn’t treat him like a pariah.

The party left the compound through the tunnel that led into the lifeless field out of sight of the Atlantean walls.

Passing from the cover of the rocks, Micah thought that the barren, blackened land around the walls was little different from the city inside them.

Bewul also gazed out over the stump-studded soil, his face devoid of readable emotion, and even Claudien’s chatter fell quiet at the sight of the polluted city and its surroundings.

“Come on,” commanded Hannen, moving forward without them, past the rocks and away from the city, toward a distant field bordered by forest.

Claudien stretched immensely, heaving a sigh.

“I’m so weary of caves and stone,” he exclaimed. “How I’ve longed for a window, or a glimpse of the sun, or just a breath of fresh air that hasn’t been already filtered through the lungs of dozens of others.”

They trailed after Hannen toward the field, where the undar knelt and began stringing a bow half his height.

Bewul, who carried a large axe on his mountainous back, moved off on his own toward a distant herd of shaggy, cow-like animals with horns like rams.

Claudien shrugged and said to Micah, “Well, I suppose you and I will be doing the foraging.”

The fat fay moved toward the treeline, carrying his weight as one well-accustomed to it. He stopped at the edge, kneeling next to a patch of mushrooms and inspecting their caps with experienced fingers while murmuring quietly to himself about needing new flavors for the kitchen.

Micah walked deeper into the foliage, using the toe of his boot to overturn layers of leaves and brushing aside hanging branches to look for plants he recognized.

There was Fellbrine, a vine identifiable by its elegant curls and pale green tapered leaves. Micah knew it to be edible, but it had little nutritional substance and would release an acrid odor if meddled with.

A tall tree laden with sprite hives alerted him to its presence when he heard it buzzing from a slight distance, and he gave it a wide berth, glimpsing tiny humanoid figures zipping through its decaying boughs.

He went further into the copse, having to skirt a large swath of lush vines that had grown over a section of half-dead trees. Nestled in its blanket lay rusty red fruits that looked like lumpy organs, producing a faint, lulling whistle. The name tickled at his brain — Cora, Coral? Choral something — but he dismissed it and moved on, searching for edibles.

At the roots of an enormous tree he found several bunches of Lady’s Leaf, its blossoms like tiny women in lilac dresses. Its seeds would cause mild indigestion and stomachache if eaten, but it was usually accompanied by — there! A useful plant caught his eye: clusters of bright orange flowers, each as small as his pinky nail, easy signs of Stagroot. He knelt next to the delicate flowers, his fingers following their stalks to their thick base. Clutching the stems, he pulled up a cluster to reveal a broad brown root, which had a musky smell and would preserve well.

He continued to pull up the tubers, carefully avoiding the slender, spiked shoots of Troll’s Bite, which would secrete deadly white sap if disturbed. He piled the roots next to him, becoming absorbed in tugging them free from the soil.

He didn’t even notice the drake until his hands moved for the next bunch of flowers and instead found a huge set of grey talons in the way. He fell back from his haunches onto his backside as his eyes followed the curved talons up a sturdy, scaly leg, past the catlike, moss-green body up to a horned head with silvery lynx eyes that were fixed curiously on him. It was a little smaller than a Shire horse.

How the hell could I have missed it?

The drake tilted its head, watching him intently. He watched as it sized him up, and he didn’t dare make a run for it in case that was prey behavior.

Then it spoke.

“Purpose?”

It blinked slowly; a slender, forked tongue flitted from between teeth that Micah wished he had not glimpsed.

“Purpose?” it repeated, its voice soft and raspy.

“Micah,” hissed Claudien from behind Micah, causing both his and the drake’s attention to focus on the fay.

The drake gave a low growl, its muzzle curling like a wolf’s as it snarled at the newcomer.

“Micah, get away from it. Slowly,” Claudien whispered to him.

Micah saw the dragon’s haunches tense. He moved quickly to preempt the pounce.

“Wait,” he commanded, holding up his hand to the drake, but it was not words, English or Cotidean, that slid past his lips. It was a raspy, singular sibilant, sharp against his tongue, that caused both drake and fay to freeze, heads turning toward him.

The drake returned to a standing position, now watching him, waiting exactly as he said.

Claudien was silent, eyes alternating between the pair.

The translation spell works for them, too? Micah thought, then tried speaking to it again, this time putting more thought into his words.

“Can you understand me?” he asked, slithery consonants slipping from him once more.

The drake gave a quick dip of the head, pallid eyes locked on his.

“Gods be--” Claudien started, and the animal’s head swung sharply to him again. Micah held up a hand to the fay this time, signaling him to be silent.

“Where is your pack, man-beast?” the drake asked, then, “Why are you here?”

Micah swallowed and said carefully, “They are hunting nearby.”

The dragon bristled, rolling back its shoulders, and Micah revised quickly, “They’re hunting grass-beasts for food. We have no food.”

It seemed to calm a little, but its reptilian eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“None have food, man-beast. Those like you come and take our prey and pack-mates.” The drake’s snout folded into what resembled a disdainful smile. “We have no pity for you.”

“I do not know of any others like us,” Micah replied, genuinely confused and trying to show it on his face to the drake, since it seemed to have a crude grasp on expressions.

“Light-shine eyes. They sleep near the waterbed split.”

“Will you show us?”

It thought over the request, then dipped its head in acquiescence and turned, slipping through the foliage, away from the clearing where Hannen and Bewul hunted far less interesting things.

Micah beckoned Claudien, who followed very closely, trying to speak where the drake wouldn’t hear him.

“You can speak the language of the ormcar?” was the first thing he asked Micah, and then followed up with, “Where is it leading us?”

“It says there are others like us, ones with ‘light-shine eyes’, that have been killing their prey and their brothers,” Micah replied softly, stepping over roots and vines as they pursued the stalking drake.

The drake slowed to a sneak about a quarter mile into the forest, ducking under a large tuft of branches. Micah saw its saurian tail flick, motioning them forward. Claudien and Micah knelt in soft grass that kept their footsteps quiet.

“There,” the dragon growled, using its muzzle to gesture toward a small clearing where several large stones stood, hemmed in by a forked stream. The stones served as a crude shelter and campsite for five people that appeared to be sleeping under ragged blankets. Micah eyed the objects scattered around the site, spotting fresh animal pelts, the remains of a smothered campfire complete with spits of salted, drying meat, and a few strange pieces of mysterious bronze equipment. He saw several peculiar helmets with dark-glassed goggles bearing many intricate lenses and dials.

Claudien hissed a sharp inhale of fear and hate.

“Infrer,” he muttered. Micah recognized the word, but the only connection that came to mind was a memory of a thin figure in a room on fire.

They backed out of the brush and away from the campsite, retreating to a place where they could talk softly.

“What are they?” Micah asked, and Claudien began nervously smoothing out his eyebrows.

“Infrer,” he said again as the drake joined them, seating itself squarely and looking back and forth between them as they continued their conversation. “They were — are? Eh, were — fae.”

“Everyone who’s mentioned them seems to hate them,” Micah remarked.

“They have the Sight, which is… it’s… well, it’s bad,” Claudien said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. “In the past, Infrer have used it for awful, unforgivable things, and, out of fear, the other races drove them into the ever-night lands of Nidafjoll. As far as I know, this is the first time they’ve been seen outside those lands in ages.”

Claudien shuddered, his face filled with dread.

“I don’t think the drakes want them here,” Micah added, glancing at the silver-eyed beast.

“Nor do we,” said the fay, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine their presence bodes well for anyone, whatever their purpose may be.”

“What if they’re just hunting for food, like us?” he asked, but before the fay could answer, the dragon gave a sharp bark which sounded like a laugh, albeit completely humorless.

“Make no mistake, man-beast. They do not come for food,” it said, teeth bared in a way that made Micah uncomfortable.

“What did it say?” asked Claudien.

“They’re not here for food.”

“We should get rid of them.”

“How—”

The big fay did not wait for him to finish, but instead began moving quickly back toward the forest edge, more swiftly than Micah could have ever guessed such a large person could move. Micah went after him, and the drake followed closely behind.

The foliage didn’t seem to hinder Claudien at all, and Micah lost sight of him in the trees; by the time he caught up to the fay, Claudien was already in the company of Bewul and Hannen, his face concerned as he relayed what they had seen.

Bewul’s expression betrayed nothing, but Hannen’s face was troubled, his thin green lips pressed in a line.

He ignored Micah as he stepped into the clearing. The drake remained in the treeline behind the human, out of sight of the fae.

“You’re positive they were infrer?” he asked Claudien. “They could have just been poachers.”

“The drake called them ‘light-shine eyes’,” replied the other, “and their camp was littered with their gear.”

The undar’s eyebrows came together in a furrow.

“The drake?”

The beast in question moved out of the cover of the trees, and Hannen took several steps back, one hand going to his bow and the other to his quiver. Bewul tensed, his two-headed axe already in hand.

The drake snarled at them, reciprocating their hostility.

“Wait,” said Micah, stepping between them.

“You can’t just lead around wild animals, boy,” Hannen snapped, but Claudien was the one who explained, “He can speak to it, and I’m pretty sure it can understand some Cotidean, as well. I was under the impression only the big ones were capable of language, but it seems I was mistaken.”

“Speak?” Hannen repeated, latching onto the one word.

“It’s okay; they’re just cautious,” Micah said to the drake, who pulled itself up straight and gently put forth a single clawed foot, as if in polite introduction. Its tail wagged like a dog’s as it looked at the nervous duo.

Bewul lowered his weapon, followed by Hannen.

“So,” said the undar uneasily, “You can speak to them? You’re full of surprises, boy.”

Micah noted the reduced contempt in the Hannen’s tone, and privately felt a little self-satisfied.

Hannen squared off his narrow shoulders, realizing there were more pressing matters to deal with, and resumed control of the hunting party.

“Alright. We need to dispatch the threat. Then we can report back to Commander Aeliana and bring back this Gaurtaur for them to salt and dry and distribute among the soldiers.” He gestured toward the downed bovine beast he and Bewul had picked off from the herd, an underdeveloped juvenile that was nonetheless several hands taller than even Bewul.

“Will they help, the fae-beasts?” the drake asked Micah.

He nodded, and the reptile beckoned them forward with its head, starting off again through the underbrush. Claudien filled in details for Hannen and Bewul as they moved through the forest.

“I counted five; they seemed to be sleeping.”

“During the day?” said Hannen with distaste. “Godless nocturnes.”

Judgmental asshole, Micah thought, judgmentally.

“Were there goggles among their gear?” asked Bewul, his first words of the day. His voice was as deep as Micah would have expected.

“Yeah, they had gear that looked like goggles,” Micah confirmed.

“Their eyes are not adjusted to the light of Nibiru. They sleep during the day, but the goggles protect their eyes if they must wake,” Bewul said.

The group fell quiet as the drake slowed, and Micah recognized that they were nearing the clearing of the forked stream.

Before they reached hearing range, Claudien whispered, “So how are we going to do this?”

“Bewul, take two, starting from the left. Boy, you can take whatever you can, and Claude, you and I--” began Hannen.

“That’s too dangerous,” Micah interrupted his instructions. The water fay’s eyes narrowed.

“We’re not here to give them a fighting chance, if they’re as dangerous as you say,” Micah explained, “so you should take out as many as you can with your bow before they even realize what’s going on.”

Claudien, catching his train of thought, continued, “We can catch them off-guard, and with them just waking up and the light blinding them, we can make this as quick and bloodless as possible.”

“I was put in charge of this party--” Hannen started, but Bewul shushed him with a hand the size of a spade.

“They’re right,” was all he whispered.

Hannen shot a dirty look at Micah but neither argued nor denied the logic. He kept his bow close to his body and darted in a crouch along the edge of the clearing.

Claudien moved to another angle to cover them, and Bewul hefted his axe and knelt, waiting. Micah felt sweat begin to bead on his forehead even in the cover of the shaded forest, becoming aware of the wet feel of it under his arms and even behind his knees. He wondered briefly whether Sidhe had seasons like the Overworld.

Hannen pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it, taking aim at one of the pale faces partially obscured by sleep-covers. He let it fly, and before the arrow had even struck, he had another ready, aiming at the next infrar. The first arrow plunged into a sleeping body, and, by the frantic gurgling coming from beneath the cover, Micah guessed it had gone right through the infrar’s throat.

The other infrer stirred.

The second arrow was loosed, and another infrar was dispatched before he could fully wake. They would not have the same advantage with the other three, as they were already awake and scrambling for the goggles.

Hannen attempted to take down a third, but the arrow buried itself into the fay’s shoulder, bringing their attention to Hannen’s location. Two of them managed to don their light-filtering goggles.

Claudien and Bewul plunged into the clearing, leaving Micah alone.

The largest of the infrer picked up and swung a broadsword which was met by Bewul's axe, the clash sounding reminiscent of an anvil being struck.

Claudien picked up one of the infrer’s own weapons, a shortsword with a curved blade, and stabbed at an adversary, who, despite being partially blinded by sunlight, dodged in a roll and drew a dirk from a sheath at his hip.

The remaining infrar — the one with the arrow in his shoulder — began to flank Claudien, and Micah saw a need for action. He left the cover of the foliage and came into the clearing, picking up a set of the goggles laying by the abandoned sleep-covers. Surprised by their weight, he did the only thing he could think of -- he threw them at the wounded infrar advancing on Claudien. It connected with his head, but the fay jolted and turned his head to gaze at Micah steadily with electric-blue eyes.

“Don’t look him in the eyes!” Claudien shouted at Micah.

Micah’s eyes flicked down to the infrar’s chest and focused there.

Claudien managed to disarm his foe, and Hannen knelt at the edge of the clearing, an arrow nocked and ready but unable to get a clear shot to help the big fay.

Bewul and his infrar circled each other warily.

Taking a deep breath, Micah planted his feet and focused on a balanced stance, like Firenze had drilled into him. The infrar came within range, and he struck.

The infrar lifted his arm to block, but Micah saw an opportunity and his fist darted beneath, catching the other in the ribs. It was a soft blow, made weak by Micah’s hesitation and lack of experience.

Strike with will, he heard Firenze’s voice. You must be ready to make contact, hit hard, and expect the consequences.

Then that needling inner voice, not at all Firenze’s -- Cripple him.

Micah steeled himself.

The infrar dove at him, and Micah twisted, seeing his opponent’s body off-balance. With a sharp exhale, he brought a savage knee up into the other’s ribs, and this time the impact was solid; he heard a whoosh and a struggling gasp as the infrar’s breath rushed out of him. The infrar hit the ground unevenly and stumbled backward, clutching his ribs.

Micah lunged.

He punched the infrar in the face — once, twice, and then a third time, quickly, viciously, before the infrar could even recoil. He felt nasal bones shatter under his fist, clenched so tight that his nails dug into his own skin, and he smelled the metallic blood that spurted from the infrar’s nose.

His adversary raised an open palm in surrender and spat through the streaming blood, “Thtop. I gib. Pleath.”

Micah hesitated a second, more from the shock of the damage he’d done than the plea. It was enough time for the infrar to roll, pick up a blood-caked hunting dagger from the dirt, and then throw himself at the human, yelling a wordless battle cry through his destroyed nose.

The blade’s edge, crusted with dirt and animal blood, came inches from Micah’s face but halted milliseconds before contact, hovering; Micah looked up to the infrar’s face, made direct eye contact with the wide, adrenaline-dilated eyes, and then he saw Claudien’s hands on either side of the infrar’s head, holding him back from the human.

There was a sickening crack as Claudien wrenched the other’s neck around, slinging nose-blood in an arc, twisting so far that the infrar stared at the fay instead as the blue light died from his eyes.

Claudien let the body fall into the bloodied dirt.

Micah felt a shudder run through him and bile rise in his throat, adrenaline coursing through his veins. The sight of the infrar with his neck twisted grotesquely seemed to be burned into his mind’s eye, even when he looked away from the spectacle.

Bewul had already dispatched his foe, whose body was cleaved almost in two from the clavicle.

Claudien and Hannen’s infrar was sprawled out with multiple arrows in his torso, but the actual cause of death had more likely come from the bruises on his neck, strangled by Claudien’s apparently-lethal hands.

Bewul began wiping the dark blood from his axe onto the trousers of one of the bodies.

“Is anyone hurt?” asked Hannen, black eyes surveying the butchery.

“No one that isn’t supposed to be,” answered Claudien, picking up one of the pieces of bronze gear and studying it. “We should take the food and equipment back with us.”

“We could definitely use the food, and maybe someone can tell us something about the gear and why they were here,” Hannen agreed.

They gathered the animal pelts and the meat, and Bewul shouldered almost all of their heavy weaponry and gear to haul back. Claudien picked up a sack partially filled with grain and put in it several pairs of the goggles, a spidery-looking contraption, and a peculiar pair of long, metal wires with weights on the ends, which he held up for them to see.

“What do you suppose these are?”

Hannen shrugged, but Micah, looking closer, realized they looked vaguely familiar.

“They look kind of like…” he grasped for the word dancing at the edge of his memory, “—bolos.” The pair looked at him without understanding. “You throw them, and they wrap themselves around animals’ legs. Hunting weapons.”

Claudien hoisted them up and grunted, “They’re damn heavy. Way too big for them.” He nodded toward the orphaned animal pelts. Into the sack the bolos went.

“Where’s our little drake friend?” asked Hannen as they were ready to go. The dragon was nowhere in sight, and Micah felt a nudge of misgiving. The others dismissed it and headed back toward the edge of the forest and their fallen Gaurtaur. It was much as they’d left it, with the addition of flies.

Bewul and Claudien crafted a crude travois to drag the beast back.

The journey back to the rocks felt longer because the heavy grain sack, bolos and all, had become Micah’s responsibility since Bewul and Claudien had taken on the Gaurtaur. Heaving everything through the tunnel and into the caverns felt satisfying though, mostly because the Vanguardians, especially in the kitchens, were deeply thankful.

For the first time Micah felt the looks from random fae were welcoming and accepting. He reveled in it for as long as he could.

Hannen did not let it last long.

“Boy, report to Commander Aeliana, and then you can take all that junk to the logistics team.”

Claudien gave an indignant huff, stepping into Hannen’s way and bending low to get into the undar’s face.

“Give him a break, you bitter little water nymph. He has earned some respect from you, at least -- he certainly did more than you did today.”

Hannen cringed but straightened quickly, anger turning his pale-green skin a darker shade.

“Fine,” he consented, begrudgingly. “Give me that sack, boy--” at Claudien’s glare, he corrected, “--Micah. Please.”

He lifted the heavy sack onto his own thin shoulders and didn’t say another word as he carried it away.

Claudien gave Micah a sly grin and said, “Best you go report to the commander.”

Micah smiled sincerely at the fay and then headed toward the collapsed gardens.

When he arrived, the cavern had mostly cleared, but still a few people lingered; among them he glimpsed Gaillard, who was peering into the black well below. He caught sight of Micah and beckoned him over with a toss of the head.

“Allie here?” Micah asked, and Gaillard pointed at the hole.

Micah noticed there were ropes staked into the ground around the hole, anchored where the rock was stable, a dozen of them trailing over the side into the abyss.

“We’ve discovered some things in your absence,” said the mage.

“Did you find out what caused it?”

“Actually, yes. Unbeknownst to us, we dug the gardens right above an ancient layer of salt. The water from the gardens caused it to destabilize over time and naturally, it subsided. It was really only a matter of time before they collapsed into the caverns below us.” The mage seemed troubled, scratching his beard. “There is a city down there, very, very old. Older than our history seems to record.”

He rolled a pair of curios in his other hand like dice.

“A city, huh?” Micah echoed.

“Many decades ago I studied the mythology of Hyperborea. I remember some scrolls implying there was an ancient city once on the coast of the dragon’s head. It was said to have been washed away by an enormous tidal wave and lost. I think this discovery confirms that Atlantis was built over that city.” He seemed to be speaking more to himself now than Micah, gazing down into the hole. Then he snapped back to attention, eyes returning to Micah.

“They’re exploring the city to see if there’s anything of interest to us down there.”

He beckoned to a nearby fay, who brought an anchored, makeshift swing over and proceeded to instruct the human in balancing in it and using it to descend.

Micah got situated and they lowered him into the hole.

For a stretch of about twenty feet the pit had sides that Micah slowly walked his feet down as he was lowered. Then the sides fell away and he could feel the chill of open space around him, even though he could not see it. The cavern was gargantuan -- he could reach out on every side and feel nothing but air. He stopped trying when he felt agoraphobia starting to fray the edges of his senses, affecting his already tenuous sense of balance in the swing.

Far beneath him, he could see several tiny lights, moving in and among dark silhouettes that he could not yet identify. As he grew closer he realized they were buildings: looming, spindly towers, arcing bridges, domed edifices whose original architecture had been sanded to simplicity by time.

When his feet finally touched the solid rock of an avenue a few minutes later, a fay was immediately at his side with a torch.

“I’m here to report to the commander,” he told the fay, who nodded and began leading him deeper into the ancient city.

Most structures looked as if they were going to fall any minute, though Micah assumed that in its prime the city must have been formidable. The walls could have been any color when they stood their tallest, but now they were washed white, perhaps by salt or by years, crumbly and threatening to topple at a touch. In the light of the torch, the walls were noticeably textured; the flickering light brought into bas relief distorted faces and bodies, their forms together making a ghastly amalgamation.

The streets of the city were latticed with empty channels where water once ran, their trenches making deep gutters for the roads, which stretched on out of sight.

Micah stared into the pervasive darkness, trying again to determine the size of the cavern. There still appeared to be no walls or edges in sight, only grasping fingers of immense blackness, pushing in at the weak light of their torch.

“How big is this place?” he asked softly, and the fay answered, “We sent people to the edges perhaps an hour ago. They haven’t reported back yet.”

The soldier seemed to know where he was going, taking a left under a bridge and onto a plaza with a large, dry fountain bed where a number of the channels met. In the middle of the circular bed was a statue, as white and worn as every other surface, but it was still tall and seemed to depict a person riding atop a giant fish leaping from the surface of what would have been a wave of water, had it been present.

Micah stared at it as he followed the fay inside a ruined building, where they found three more fae, each with their own torch, sifting through pale dirt. Most everything seemed to deteriorate into powder at a touch, but Micah saw one of the fae had found and was turning over in his hands what appeared to be a spear head, glassy and pitch black. The last fay in the room, sitting in a corner and running her hands over a long line of engravings on the wall, was Allie.

As Micah and his escort approached, she looked up.

“The hunting party is back, then?” she said, standing and causing a cloud to rise around her. Her black tunic and trousers were cloudy with white dust, as was her tied-back hair.

“We ran across some troubling things,” Micah replied, and Allie nodded at the fay behind him, signaling dismissal. He gave a brief salute and turned, leaving them alone.

“Couldn’t just have an uneventful, fruitful trip, huh?” she asked.

“We brought back a little food--” he started.

“Enough to feed the soldiers?”

“Not for long, maybe a few days at most,” he admitted, “but that’s not the bad part.”

“Of course it isn’t, because Eris herself seems to have blessed our lives,” remarked Allie, crossing her arms. He noticed she was thinner and there was a harshness in her eyes that had not been there before. It didn’t seem to be directed at him; it just seemed to linger in her gaze, like the look of a man who has not slept in many hard days.

“We found a small group -- five -- of infrer. Their party seemed to be hunting, from what we can tell.”

Micah saw the muscles of her jaw harden in the light of the fire. Her arms fell to her sides.

“That is troubling,” she agreed. “It may seem obvious, after one pursued us in the Overworld, but I suspect that the infrer are connected to our friends squatting in the palace. How, though, I’m not sure yet.”

“Commander!” called one of the fae, and she turned her head.

“What is it?”

“We’ve found what appears to be an armory.”

She gave Micah her torch and an apologetic smile, and then her hand bloomed with light as she walked toward the fay who had called her.

Micah turned his attention to his own little corner. The carvings, reduced to shapeless indentations, had little meaning to him, so he took the torch and began walking through the white dust, thankful for the Sitisian knee-high boots.

He left the building and entered what would have once been a street, observing in the eerie torchlight the tall spires and steeples of the forgotten city, all its architecture marred by misshapen faces and hands.

Micah couldn’t begin to guess how long the city had lay under Atlantis, like some sort of silent, pale hell far beneath the sun’s touch. It was unsettlingly eerie.

Several yards from the structure he’d vacated was a looming building that looked like a cathedral. It was even taller than the surrounding buildings and was imposing not only for its height but for its pair of towering double doors in black, massive and stronger-looking than any other buildings around it. It was the only structure so far that seemed to have withstood the ravages of time.

The doors were slightly open.

He slid in between the gap they had formed and found himself in a large room, the ceiling high and featureless. It was mostly empty, and all its surfaces -- floor, walls, and ceiling -- were the same slick, black stone as the doors. It made it easy to spot the one thing in the room.

A skeleton, as crumbly and white as the streets he had left, slumped in the corner, legs splayed and hands cupped in its lap, head laid back against the wall in death.

Is this a prison then? Micah wondered, and took a step closer to the bones. The flames from his torch caused shadows to dance in the eye sockets of the skull, making Micah feel as if it were watching him from the bottom of its eyes. The unsettling feeling in his chest deepened when he saw that its jaw was wide open, as if in death it had a ghastly grin on its face.

You found me, it seemed to say to him.

He was turning to leave when the firelight glinted off something nestled in the skeleton’s fingers. Micah drew closer, slowly, half-expecting the bones to rise up to protect their treasure.

Kneeling in front of the bones, he was able to peer through the thin fingers and see a large marble-like object, blue banded by burnished gold. It caught the flickering light in such a way that the depths of the marble attained an impossible shade of cerulean, and Micah was still, mesmerized.

“Micah!” came Allie’s voice, “We’re heading back up!”

He stood to go, then looked back at the sphere, then knelt again, torn at the prospect of taking it from its owner, long dead or not.

“Micah!”

He reached for the marble, his fingers brushing over its cold surface in between the smoothness of the bones. Their hands met: ancient and modern, human and Gods-knew-what, Overworld and a forgotten city whose name was lost. Micah’s grasping fingers shattered the skeleton’s, and as soon as the sphere was in his hands, the bones crumbled into a fine dust. The pale, powdery pile on the floor of blackness would be an image stuck in Micah’s mind for the rest of his life, looking back on this moment.

He pocketed the orb without looking closer at it and then jogged into the street, lifting his torch high so that his companions could see him. Below the entrance pit, its light like a dim sun far overhead, were Allie and her soldiers, carrying bundles of strange weapons. One of the fae saw the human’s torch and pointed to him, and they waited as he caught up.

“Anything interesting?” asked Allie as they crossed the short distance to the harnesses beneath the garden hole.

A part of Micah, the first to volunteer an opinion, informed him that it didn’t want to share what he’d found in that dark prison cell.

He was silent for a few seconds as the bundled weapons were secured to a swing. He was on the verge of acting on that secretive impulse, but his better nature had the last word. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the orb, which had a pleasant weight in his cupped palm. He held it out to her.

Allie looked at it, her brows furrowed.

“That’s...unusual,” she said, as if it weren’t the word she was really looking for, and then added, “Go ahead and keep it; just make sure you have Gaillard check it for curses or anything.”

She didn’t even reach for it.

He seemed surprised, retracting his hand a little.

She shook her head and looked vaguely uncomfortable.

The sphere went back into his pocket.

He picked up a harness and began positioning himself in it. With a quick tug, the crew were hauled up into the darkness. Micah let the disconcerting feeling of massive empty space settle around him.

As they were pulled up, he heard Allie say, “Everyone carrying weapons, take them to Firenze to be checked out, please.”

The circle of light above them grew bigger as they rose, and Micah could hear the steady slide of rope against rock and the chatter of people above.

Allie was the first to clamber over the edge, and she immediately turned to give a hand to one of the soldiers behind her, who was struggling with the weapons strapped to his back. She stood at the edge of the pit and ensured every fay made it up successfully, and didn’t turn away until everyone was out of their harnesses.