Lor steps into the shadows, and every bit of him, magic and all, is swallowed.
15
Caverns beneath the Earth
Iohmar leaps upon the shadows, and the world is black as pitch.
He has fallen before. When he fought back the ripplings. He doesn’t remember what led to it but remembers calling to the winds to catch him. Remembers they barely eased his plummet before he met the ground. Remembers pain afterward.
This is not the same type of falling.
Air is stolen from his lungs. For a few long seconds, there is no sight, no touch, and no breath.
He crashes into something damp and unforgiving. Air returns in gasps. His chest aches. For a moment, he lies tense and still, waiting for a threat to make itself known. No magic slithers nearby. One eye cracks open, then the other, and he raises his head, pulling the tip of his horn free of the earth.
Shadows greet him, so full and immense he’s certain the dark is its own living thing, not the underground cavern his logical mind knows he’s fallen into. Holding his hands before his face, he touches his cheeks without seeing their shape. His skin, which once glowed in the darkness of his tunnels, gives off no light. It hasn’t since the illness. He hasn’t missed it until this moment. Searching for Lor’s magic, he catches hold of it, too far off to determine danger.
“Lor!” he calls, raising his voice above a level which might tremble.
Silence swallows the sound, and not even an echo greets him. Raising his hands and finding nothing impeding, he stands with caution. The largest of his left horns catches on something, and he brushes away what feels to be a branch but has no spark of life. No scent permeates the underground place. Unease rises with his senses denied. Tightness twists the inside of his chest, a sharp string around his heart yearning to find his child. He breathes stale air and does his best to mute the panic.
“Lor?” he tries at less a volume. It seems as if the air itself envelops his words.
His steps are uncertain, the earth damp and hard-packed. Cold seeps into his bare toes. He picks up the faint sense of his son, the soft smell of bark and moss he carries with him, and tries to follow a specific direction. It’s too dark to determine if the shadows about him are moving or natural. He will not stop to consider until Lor is safe at his side.
“Da . . .”
It’s a whimper so soft Iohmar almost mistakes it for a trick of his mind. But there is light in the darkness, Lor’s skin gaining the trait Iohmar lost, and he stumbles into a run.
“Lor,” he calls, then hears a sharp cry of surprise. “Lor, listen to my voice. I’m over here, Wisp.”
The light grows stronger, bouncing toward him, and Lor’s cries become more intense. The boy smacks straight into Iohmar’s leg. Iohmar breathes under the crush of relief.
“Daidí,” Lor cries. His sobs grow. Iohmar bends and cups the boy’s small face within his hands. He still keeps his talons dull, so they cause no harm when he runs his thumbs under Lor’s wet eyes. Leaves shed from his skin in upset, disappearing into the dark. Iohmar senses no harm, no more than a bad fright, and moves the hair from his face. His own fingers are visible now, lit against Lor’s luminescent skin.
“What’s wrong, Wisp?” he asks. Lor covers his face with his hands, mumbling something unintelligible under the sobbing.
Iohmar settles on the cold earth and wraps the boy in his arms. Lor is small enough to fit perfectly against his chest, head tucked under Iohmar’s chin. Listening to the sound of his soft cries, the only noise in the immense darkness, he holds him tight enough his tiny body doesn’t shake as a leaf in a storm.
“Everything is well,” he whispers against the boy’s ear. “You’re safe. I’ve found you.”
Lor hiccups. Frightened of the dark? Or something else? Iohmar expected tears after being dragged into the earth but didn’t expect him to become distressed once he found him. A tug twists his stomach. Turning Lor in his lap until he can tip his face upward, he cradles him in one arm, cupping his chin with his other hand. Big eyes blink at him. They’re still more human than Iohmar expected, large and round and soft. His son’s eyes. He adores them.
“It’s quite all right,” he tells him. “It’s just darkness. We’re not frightened of darkness, are we?”
“No.” Lor’s voice is a hoarse tremble, eyes not reflecting the word. Iohmar wonders if the boy has kept the human ability to twist the truth.
“Are you afraid of the dark, Wisp?”
The boy has never shown aversion to the darkest hours of night. Only when morning twilight has long fallen across the land does he crawl into Iohmar’s bed.
Lor murmurs, “I thought you were gone.”
Iohmar frowns. He’s never left him for more than a few hours, and even then, Galen or Rúnda or one of his kingsguard looked after him. Lor’s never been alone or abandoned in his life, not since Iohmar found him.
“Why would you believe such a thing, dearheart?” he asks, nuzzling their noses.
Lor wraps both arms around Iohmar’s neck. “I dunno . . .”
“You don’t know. Silly boy.”
He sits a while longer, soon rising with Lor in his arms. Nothing on the strange unseen floor will harm Lor’s bare feet. Darkness swarms them as a living thing, now visible in Lor’s light, but doesn’t enter the halo he casts. Iohmar wanders, never bumping into any wall or knocking his head on a low ceiling. His toes and fingers are numb with cold. He tucks his hands within the sleeves of his light robes, arms curled under the boy’s bottom. He isn’t susceptible to cold or heat until it’s severe. Even Rúnda’s chilly windswept tower does not cause him discomfort. It must be frigid here. Lor does not shiver, tucked against Iohmar’s chest and bundled into his long robes. One tiny arm curls between his chest and Iohmar’s, his other hand gripping his broken horn. He hasn’t lost the habit since he was a little babe. It weighs on Iohmar’s head, but he appreciates the burden.
Iohmar’s mountains have never been lost to him. Even in the deepest pits of exhaustion and injury, he always connects with the magic in and about him, ever present in his mind whether awake or asleep, drawing from his mountains and trees. Here, it is present, and Lor’s as well, a small flame against the cold. But no other life exists. His magic is of use if something exists to cling to. He interacts with his trees. Steps through sunlight. Hides in shadow. Calls to the winds. Calms the mountains when they tremble. Even in the darkest, deepest caves beneath his Halls, even atop Rúnda’s tower where nothing exists save the chill and the wind and salt from the sea, he can find life.
Here, nothing exists to reach. This world is cold and dead, so long forgotten and lacking in life it must have been millennia and millennia before Iohmar existed when anyone last stepped foot here.
If anyone ever has.
How can such a place exist? It’s so deep even water has not found a path. The air is damp and breathable. If fresh air flows, Iohmar should be able to follow it to the surface, yet he cannot find where it originates. The shadows dragged them down, but nothing exists for Iohmar to see or acknowledge. What do they wish of him? To harm him and his son? What other motives could they have for bringing them to this buried lifeless place?
Stopping, Iohmar closes his eyes. He acknowledges the feather weight of Lor in his arms, the miles upon miles upon miles of deep crushing earth held by nothing but the walls of an inexplicable cavern. He is enveloped, unable to reach past this place. He reaches outward instead of toward the surface and is lost, unraveling. So vast. So unending. It’s as if he’s gazing upon Rúnda’s ocean in the dark of night without the comfort of warm sand beneath his feet. He draws back. Something brushes his magic. He can’t put a name to it. It’s nothing alive, but a shape, a disturbance in the earth otherwise even and uninterrupted.
Letting the shape fill his mind, he walks, eyes closed.
“Where are we?” Lor whispers. His tears have ceased, but his voice is shaken, and angry heat fills Iohmar’s chest. Whatever the shadows’ motivations, they’ve frightened his child, his sweet little Wisp. He buries the emotion from his voice.
“I’m not sure, Wisp. Somewhere far, far below the mountains.”
