“Where are we going?”
“I’m not sure of that either.”
Lor wriggles against him. Far too young to have a grip on his own magic, he doesn’t understand its ways—Iohmar will never understand in full himself—but has been watching his father summon animals and bring forth plants from the earth with a touch of his finger since Iohmar brought him to the Fair Halls. He plays often with the sunlight creatures Iohmar creates and makes small flowers bloom.
His voice grows softer. “Why can’t we leave?”
Iohmar strokes his back. “I’m looking for a way out. We’re so far down I can’t grow our trees.”
“Why did those creatures bring us here?”
“I am unsure. There are some things dwelling in these lands even I am not familiar with. Those shadows are strange to me. I don’t believe they speak in the ways you and I do.”
“Is it like the other fae I can’t understand?”
Iohmar frowns. Creatures in the twilight lands understand one another, but this isn’t a trait Lor seems to have gained from Iohmar when the woman saved him. Several times in the past, he’s noticed Lor’s lost expression when creatures speak in other tongues. It isn’t unheard of; Iohmar believes he remembers Ascia having difficulties understanding languages not her own, but he isn’t sure if such memories are true or dreamt. Hopefully, when the boy is older and his magic is developed, Iohmar will be able to teach him. It hasn’t been an issue of concern, but it’s something the boy’s noticed. Rúnda’s noticed the difference as well, though she hasn’t spoken of it except to mention it once in passing.
He should have taken today’s opportunity to tell her of Lor. He will do so when they leave the cavern.
“I believe not. I don’t suspect these creatures can speak at all. If they do, I cannot hear them.”
Iohmar listens to the whisper of his feet. He loves the soundless woods, the hissing silence of the desert, and the crash of the ocean, which is an empty and full quiet. This is different, pressing on all sides, and he wishes to be rid of it.
A wall appears. Iohmar bumps into it before recoiling, a start running down his limbs. Lor catches his breath. Iohmar smooths his robes. He shouldn’t be so easily startled. Shifting the boy to one arm, he presses a palm to the earth—as damp as the floor—and feels his way until it breaks. He continues toward the massive lifeless presence. Lor’s skin grows brighter. He unburies his face from Iohmar’s shoulder to gaze at his hand. Iohmar turns Lor’s fingers over in his own. Perhaps the deeper the dark, the more he brightens. Iohmar never noticed with his own skin. Strange.
Flecks of leaves swirl to the ground, specks of fading radiance. Lor brightens until Iohmar is holding a beacon of light pale as the farthest stars. It tears at the thick darkness surrounding them. The shadows retreat in swarms.
“What are you trying to show me?” he whispers, more and more believing speech is futile.
A vast cavern stretches before them, long and empty as the one they left, and tall colorless pillars curve toward the ceiling. Iohmar lays his fingers against the nearest one. Each is the width of him plus another and at least a dozen of him in height until their tops disappear in darkness. They are an uncanny pale not matching the gray walls, different than Iohmar’s skin or Lor’s birch bark complexion. Cold radiates, too rough and lifeless to be ice, too odd in texture and off in color to be stone. When he puts his face near, it is easier to breathe.
Bone. He steps back, gazing up at them, pillar after pillar.
A rib cage.
“Oh,” he whispers, chest empty in shock, overwhelmed by the size and knowledge.
Iohmar’s grandfather told him stories of his own grandmother, who had been a small thing herself when the last of the dragons were seen. They were not hunted. They did not sicken. They simply ceased to be and fell into human myth so long ago that none now believe they ever existed.
“Oh, great beast,” he murmurs, laying his cheek against the cold rib as if some life and magic could be left to pluck out and cherish. Cool air drifts from the surface, but the bones are empty as these cavern walls. He wanders in and around them until he finds the skull, with teeth the size of him and an eye socket double his height.
This, the shape of a head and mouth and eye, Lor recognizes. “What . . . is it?”
“It was a dragon. A great thing that flew. Wiser than any fae.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
Iohmar realizes. Lor, so small, so young, knowing nothing but life in their bright Halls, has never grasped the concept of something ceasing to be. Death. And Iohmar hates to tell him. Hates it in this dark and empty and old place. But he cannot lie to the boy and does not wish to dismiss his words or dance around an answer.
“It died a very long time ago, before any of us existed,” Iohmar says. Lor’s eyes stay on the creature, but Iohmar sees confusion. “It’s no longer alive. It no longer feels or thinks or breathes or exists in this world. This is a remnant. It is no longer here.”
Finally, Lor turns his face up to Iohmar’s. Fear is written there, and Iohmar’s throat closes.
“Are we . . . ?” Lor trails off.
“No, no. We’re not going to cease down here. It is not our time. We’re going to find a way out.”
Lor blinks, a furrow forming between his eyebrows, and Iohmar says, “I do not lie to you, dearheart.”
“I know,” Lor whispers, locking his arms around Iohmar’s neck, head on his shoulder while his eyes trail the remnants of the great beast. Iohmar gazes upward, finding the place where the skeleton reaches into the roof of the cavern, disappearing into the earth. The other half of the rib cage is buried in the far wall of the cave, and the sight of it tugs at him—a strange dream in his childhood, or a story told to him by his grandparents.
Mumbling an apology to the creature so long buried, he finds one of its great claws and climbs. The bones are rough beneath the soles of his feet. Atop the tallest horn, he reaches upward, stretching onto his toes, and presses his hand to the ceiling of the cave.
There. There, finally, his magic touches something of the world he knows.
Relief wraps around him. Iohmar didn’t comprehend the weight of his worry until it eased. Gripping Lor tight with one arm, drawing strength and encouragement from his warmth and familiarity, from the bond created, he stretches his magic taut. Mile upon mile upon mile of cold earth reach him until loam and decaying plants and underground water appears. Past those, so far he brushes it with his magic as a child reaches for a high shelf, he nudges the roots of a tree.
And the earth cracks.
It is as if the whole world shudders. Lor gasps, staring up at the dark ceiling. Though he’s witnessed Iohmar practice magic, those were tricks in comparison. So long has it been since Iohmar utilized his magic in such a way. It aches and awakens, and Iohmar isn’t sure if it’s painful or relieving. He was a king on the battlefield when last he reached so deep within his own life force.
A crack appears, a tiny vine snaking about his wrist so dark and shriveled it’s been in the ground for centuries. Iohmar catches the softest hint of fresh air. Satisfied, he shifts Lor higher onto his shoulder.
“Hold to me, both arms and legs. Grasp very tight now,” he murmurs. Lor locks his arms around Iohmar’s neck, little feet hooking against his sides. Iohmar feels his infant breath against the side of his neck.
He glances at the great skeleton stretching into the dark. There is, once more, a strange tint of magic he almost recognizes. A dream. Shadows. He cannot see them, but his eyes keep believing they catch something out of sight.
Iohmar calls to the roots he’s pulled down so far and climbs from the graveyard.
