Surfacing Ch. 03

Auslan blinked and tilted his head as if in confusion. Then he smiled. "Perhaps someday."

All the colors were so vibrant—a deep blue Sky complimenting the dark red sand, the fiery colors of the horse and the pure gold of the elf's hair, the Sun, and Auslan's streak...even the black and white of our own coloring seemed to fit into the stark, brilliant scene. I realized that the tracers to which I'd grown accustomed on the Surface weren't present as I viewed this place.

What was out of place, I finally noticed, was the grey spot far in the other direction of the horse and rider. A cloud? Even without tracers, it was too fuzzy to make it out, the only mass that broke the clear line of where the Sky met the land.

"They will know we are here before long," the Consort said solemnly, following my gaze, standing almost perfectly still with only the hot wind tousling his long hair. "They are reaching out the same as we are, testing the boundary. Do not fear them, they belong as we do, but do help choose the boundary."

"Who are 'they,'" I asked, somehow not expecting a direct answer to that question.

"The other side."

Far too simple, especially for words vague as the outline of that grey cloud.

"There are always multiple sides," I commented.

Auslan smiled slowly and wider than before. Was he pleased? "Do keep count, and forget none of them."

*****

Tamuril was awake before me, something I didn't care for at all, but at least she was only huddled on her nest with her back against the wall, nibbling tiny amounts of her stores which I'd left as she watched me with those hateful, leaf-green eyes. Pilla had not returned yet, and my spiders remained at the nape of my neck. The fact that I had risen out of reverie naturally meant that the elf had never moved from her spot. She also sat with her weight shifted off of her injured buttock, so she still felt that.

When I tried to move, my breath hitched as soreness assailed my entire body. The Silven watched as I slowly stood up out of my chair and stretched gingerly. I would not be stiff for long, though the holes in my skin would need cleaning and redressing again.

"When do we leave?" the blonde elf asked quietly, though I barely heard her over the noise of the birds claiming their territory again as the Sun rose.

I shrugged. "Do you have a preference?"

"Today."

I tilted my head. "Do you feel strong enough?"

"Do you?"

My lip curled. "A few surface pokes aren't enough to down me. Your insides, however, will be healing for weeks."

The blonde looked as though she may purge her meager breakfast; it was clear she wished I hadn't said that.

"Unless you have a beast to carry you," I said, "we stay and heal another two days. More if you cannot eat and drink more than you have."

One might think, by the way her face contorted, that I had suggested we spend the next few days plucking all her falcon's feathers and fletching her arrows with them.

"It is not a threat," I said gruffly. "It is necessity. You collapse near the Tower, I will not endanger myself to help you. I will not thank you if you spoil my approach. Do not leave until you are certain you have reserves to call upon."

The druid did seem to agree with that argument, though she made a face when I said I would not help her if she fell. It was conceited to judge me, I thought, when it would be from her own short-sightedness.

She brooded for a long time, unwilling to talk or look at me and I realized that my own time of rest here would seem....very long, as we just sat in reticent wariness. I took my time cleaning and redressing my own wounds—using some of the leftover paste from last night's surgery—and dressing before moving next to inspecting and cleaning my weapons.

Sadly, this showed her most of what I had for weaponry as she did start to look over more often, but it needed to be done and I wasn't going to leave her alone for any long stretch. Even fetching water from the well would require the both of us. I could hold to the sure knowledge that she did not know what was in my pouches, and she still hadn't seen the spiders beneath my hair, though she may suspect it had been a bite that downed her.

"That necklace beneath your armor...what is it?" she asked me.

I realized she had to have seen the sapphire not just this time but the time before, both times I had stripped off my shirt, as it lay between my breasts.

"Decoration," I said.

"Lie," she said. "Everything on you has a use. You would not carry useless weight on a long journey. And more, I could not think it would have spiritual value."

I found myself grinning. Both right and wrong; it was far from useless, yes...but it also held a powerful memory associated with it. Or at least a powerful Drow.

"The weight is slight."

"Meaning it is useless?" She did not believe that.

"Meaning it is mine, and I keep what's mine," I said. "What more do you need to know?"

"If that metal is meant to be a new Moon shining, and the blue stone is perhaps the rest of the Moon in shadow?"

I was careful about looking down, that would be a perfect distraction. I kept my gaze on her and fished the cord to lift the pendant up to my face instead, taking another look at it. I hadn't seen it before, but she was right. Now that I had had a comparison, the platinum and stone made a near-perfect circle, and the whole together did look like a Moon at the beginning of its phases, with the bare outline of the rest of the celestial body visible in darker, bluish shade.

"Huh," I said in consideration. "We see what we see."

She took a moment to interpret that, and followed up with a rather perceptive question. "What did you see upon first looking at it?"

I smiled. "A sickle. I saw the sapphire as just a stone."

"A sickle? Your kind farm?" Her eyes had gotten very wide.

"More slaves do," I said. "We manage cultivation."

"You have slaves," she said.

"And you do not." I returned the sapphire to its hiding place, watching and waiting. When she didn't say it, I supplied it for her. "Evil, as I understand the word."

"It's shameful to sell and imprison other beings."

I didn't even know where to start with that one. Slaves and thralls were so widespread among the dominant races, the Duergar, the Illithids, us...more. Even the gnomes kept servants, I thought. It became the way of survival and power, because if the most gifted of every race had to spend their days doing the mundane, raking in the raw resources, there would be no progress, no defense against the others, no strong force supported by those mundane workers—who were in turn kept, fed, and protected from unfamiliar outsiders by the gifted. It provided stability, concentrated and focused the wealth, when we could instead be scuffling in the damp and the dark, fighting over a fish corpse, cycle-by-cycle, and hand-to-mouth.

But I did not even know when it had all begun, or whether it had always been like that. There seemed the space and resources up here on the Surface to allow for another way...

"Not much knowledge of the Underdark, I take it? And what are you, if not evil?"

"Good," she said. "Compassionate. In harming none, do as one will."

"Impossible," I commented. "You kill and steal to eat, just as I do."

"I do not!" she nearly shouted.

"Let us start small. You harm the body of grass by walking on it. And those dried insects in your pantry expired on their own? The seeds that will never grow into a plant were not stolen from a place in the earth to sprout? What about eggs in a mother's nest, or—"

Tamuril made an incredibly frustrated gesture, ending with a swipe to one side as if trying to clear what obscured her sight before her, and I actually felt a pulse of magic against my chest and tingling along my ears, though nothing seemed to happen. Interesting.

"You do not take insects as slaves," she hissed.

At last, a marvelous counterpoint that cut through to her actual point. I was finally starting to enjoy my morning as the debate passed the time and the constantly shifting energy kept my body warm as it healed.

I chuckled. "Granted. But I challenge that you cannot always know when you harm another with your actions. If you had ever played our Game, Tamuril, you would know the ripples are felt far beyond a choice made. You must accept some harm done, beyond what you intend, or it is not a balance. It is not the world."

Tamuril gave me a level look then. She seemed to think of something particular regarding what I'd just said. "Then tell me if you have ever chosen penance, if you know you have done harm...then heal next to regain that balance. Do you regret anything?"

I frowned and was silent at first as my mind chewed on something new. If I knew I'd done harm, wouldn't I have intended it from the start? I would have planned it, or taken the opportunity. Or, if I had not intended it, I would still make the best of it and accept it. And yet...there were exceptions to everything...

Jael again. The Elders had not intended the Duergar to be so close to her test. Neither had I meant to fail as she'd been too injured to live...I had not done the harm, but I had healed her because...I felt. Something.

So had Auslan. And Gaelan, too, playing both sides as I underwent my initiation, healing as I was hurt, to keep balance, to help me survive by giving me an outlet for my anger. Then I had done the same with Jael; given her rest and contrast to what the others were doing. Why? Because we wanted something beneficial to us, or we wanted to avoid something worse. Did that constitute "penance" or "regret"? Maybe not.

Nonetheless, I tried a nod. "Perhaps. My one friend...I 'regretted' when she was dying, part of my own doing. I gave her my potion, though it put me at risk."

Tamuril did not scoff immediately as she had the previous day, possibly because I did not sound sure about this one. Instead, she watched me as if considering...and as if leaning toward believing that I spoke some truth. Her face almost had the appearance of becoming softer as her gaze deepened and she blinked away a new set of tears.

"I regret the death of a young, Human boy when I could not return with what I needed heal him, and was captured instead," the elf said, clenching her jaw before enunciating her next words carefully. "Your 'guardian' did not know what harm she had done beyond raping me."

"True," I said. Jaunda would have no way of knowing that, nor was she—or anyone—expected to know all that happened beyond their own home. "But she would not care if you told her, especially knowing how short a Human's life is anyway."

"What if...you told her?" the druid asked, suppressing an apparent response to my comment in favor of her question.

I smiled. "It would depend how I told her."

"Meaning...you could make her feel something, if you cared enough to be persuasive," Tamuril clarified.

Nice leap. I thought we'd skipped a few questions. It was true, too.

I shrugged. "Perhaps. She is her own body and mind. Though yes, when it mattered to me, I could persuade her."

She nodded, and fell silent. I wondered, could she actually be scheming?

"So is the necklace a Moon?" she asked.

I laughed aloud. I thought I had successfully distracted her from that, but she had come back around, just as I had from talking with Jael about her trial with the Draegloth. Tamuril was learning as much from me as I from her...and she had the same potential as any Drow. She was just perhaps out of practice in using it.

"That is as told to me, but I do not know more," I said. "So do not ask."

And for whatever reason, she accepted that. Soon after, Pilla returned, and we focused on more mundane things like collecting water and gathering more food for a new journey.

I did not know where this game would end, but I believed I would enjoy it.

******

Tamuril and I set out on foot two days later. The elf truly had not seemed to have any healing potions in reserve, and the pellets I placed beneath my tongue—out of either her or her falcon's view after that first time—did what they were supposed to do. I noticed the soreness and swelling receding at a much more rapid pace than normal—as if the wounds had no obstacles to overcome and had simply begun knitting flesh back together from the very first day.

The druid was far weaker than I was, though I did not give away much as to make that clear to her, and her long stride at a sustainable pace for her was more than comfortable for me. I may have had more trouble with a double-time march, though.

Pilla flew above us, keeping watch and scouting ahead and periodically coming back to squawk at her druid before flying off again. She never went far, though, as long as I walked beside her mistress.

The blonde elf looked down at me periodically at first as we walked through the forest mountains in the direction of the Tower. I could still feel the whine at the back of my head that told me we had not deviated far from the ley line, but every time the landscape forced us to go another direction, the druid always took us unerringly back to it. Only the first three times did I fully expect her to keep moving away until I couldn't feel it for hours and I would have to challenge her betrayal of our deal...but then, before it came to that, we'd return within one hour and we moved at a good pace.

"Are all Drow your height?" Tamuril asked.

My eyes came up only to the level of her throat.

"I am average. There are taller and shorter females. The males are all shorter, though not by too much."

"Hm," she said. "A result of your environment and culture?"

"Why not? That is why you are tall, yes? More food, no ceiling, no crawling. You would bump your head on most of our doors and have trouble with most crevices and tunnels."

She smiled, just slightly, imagining that. I grinned a bit wider.

She said, "It's strange to think I remember your guardian as being so much larger than me..."

Tamuril had been talking more about her attack, off and on, and I was letting her. She referred to Jaunda as my "guardian" as it seemed to keep a certain distance between her words and her memories that she wanted to maintain. I had long considered that such a tactic might work if I ever needed to talk about Kerse...though I may never need to. The Silven needed it; I could sense some change in her as she did so and I recognized a recovering beast when I saw one. I had learned far different lessons on how to manage injuries, but healing was healing.

"She is taller than me," I said. "My lips would touch her chin, facing each other."

Which made Jaunda mid-height between us. My Lead was, of course, much stronger than either of us, her mass more dense. The Silven was reedy and thin, even possessing her female curves. Her breasts were smaller, arms and legs and torso all longer and more slender as if her bones could snap like those twigs in her hair. I had seen lounging Nobles at Court engaged far less physical activity adopt such a shape but...the druid was quite active in the forest, so it was a different kind of thin. Her muscles were ropey and longer; they moved differently.

"I would wager she may be able to toss a wolf if necessary," I commented. "She is as fierce, and she is wider in places compared to you. Your mind has not exaggerated much with time. Without the height, she still may seem larger."

Perhaps that wasn't so comforting to her, but Tamuril was getting used to me saying such things and was starting to see the information if them rather than assuming insult or closing her mind against me or something unpleasant. She was facing it.

She had not dropped her guard and was still fully aware of the risks, as was I, but she could function around me and make her own situation better with effort. I was applauding her, in my own way. I wasn't certain she saw it that way, but she was fighting it less.

"Still her shade seems...less demonic now," the druid commented, "talking to you. You do not fear her."

"She likes me. I am a lucky one. Plenty still fear her."

"She does not come to the surface?"

"She has before, may again, but that is all I know."

"So many secrets for such a close band of warriors mounting each other."

I smiled at my guide's rising ability to toe the line between crass and flirt, and winked at her; Tamuril made a face and harrumphed in response and continued looking forward. Many topics came and went, and we bedded down on opposite sides in a cave the first night. I could even say she seemed stronger the next morning.

Rather far into the second day, I noticed the foliage changing again, seeming stunted and a little less robust, as if the soil was of poorer quality. There were more evergreens as there had been up in the rocky mountain slopes, their spice making me wonder if their berries might distill an interesting spirit? Leafy trees were still here, but more scraggly, and the shrubs were woody and twisted, the grasses tougher, with less moss and mushrooms overall.

There were a few concentrated patches of toadstools that seemed odd to me, though. The soil was black and very little else grew around it. I had barely raised my arm to point them out when Tamuril answered.

"Spoiled ground," she said. "Evidence we are entering the Necromancer's realm. Tomorrow we should be able to see the tower. Then I will leave you to your mission, if you will let me leave, and do not try to take back the pouch you gave me."

I smiled. "Of course. You could have left it back at your dwelling if you feared that."

The odd pause on her part caught my attention, and my mind started working on alternatives immediately.

"Unless you don't mean to return, at least not soon," I added, keeping my gaze steady. Now that I thought back, she had prepared her dwelling to withstand a fairly long absence.

She wouldn't match my eyes. "I have penance to see to with the pouch. Perhaps I can restore my own balance."

I tilted my chin down; I hadn't blinked. "But the boy is dead."

"His father is not."

"Oh? Tell me that story. For what I've told you of my Sister."

Tamuril tried to look surprised, but it did not come across as genuine as she may have liked.

"You've been waiting for me to ask," I commented.

She blushed a bit and shrugged. "You said yourself...you did not care."

"You did well to make me curious instead. You are likely the only Silven who may understand anything of Drow."

That did not look like the compliment or asset to her that I had meant it to be, but Tamuril still thought for a few moments before telling me what she wanted me to know.

"I do not have constant contact with Humans," she murmured as we each stepped lightly, keeping our ears open for birdsong stopping or other warnings. "I visit a few isolated families, watch their children grow. They view me as a spirit of the woods made flesh, and I have granted them aid when I can. One boy in particular has stood out, gifted by the hand of his god, we believe, and has grown strong among men. He left to answer a call to help lead forming armies against the aggressive movements of the Ma'ab."

The druid glanced at me, and I nodded that I was following her story. Her eyes narrowed a bit that I did not need an explanation of that particular force, but continued.

"Soon after he left the last time, his young son contracted a lung disease that could not be purged through what means we had. He was wasting away. There was a magical elixir I could make that had the best chance of working, but one component is the genetha myocete I sought underground. The mushroom that your kind prevented me from finding."

She may have overcome some of her trauma talking with me, but the bitterness was definitely still there. I was not surprised that she had flung that barb in the tone that she had. It did not affect me either way; I nodded again. It was fact, after all.