EóGAN II

  The simpering groans of pain were getting on Eogan’s last nerve. It must be the Jotling whining about a skinned knee, he thought to himself. When he tried to voice a biting criticism, it felt like his mind had turned jelly. His thoughts muddled and his tongue would not move, as if it was swollen. After a long moment, Eógan realized that he was the one groaning. When he tried to sit up, Liadan who was crouching over him, gently pressed him back down.

  “You struck your head, quite hard,” she told him softly. He was grateful she had not raised her voice, the throbbing of his injury was excruciating.

  “Are you… are we safe?” he asked with considerable effort.

  Liadan looked about the dusty chamber. “Yes, Esker was able to commune with those horrid creatures and has thankfully laid them to rest.”

  Eógan probed the tender spot on the back of his head, his hair was matted with drying blood. “At least my handsome face was spared,” he quipped.

  Liadan snorted and rolled her pretty eyes. “If you are well enough to jest, you are well enough to help find a way out of this dreadful tomb.” She offered a hand and pulled him to his wobbly feet.

  Eógan braced an arm against the wall, ginger in his motions. His head injury made it harder to see in the dimness of the chamber. “Lia, could you shine a bit of light in my life?” The Gaídel lass obliged, it was overwhelming. “Less light, less light!” he cried, shielding his face with his other arm.

  Liadan laughed and obliged by shielding her flickering hand with her body. “Follow me, you should see this.” She crossed the room to where he had battled the undead creature.

  “Great, now it is a bloody sculpture,” Eógan said as he examined his spear, it was embedded in a rippling sweep of stone. “ESKER!” he called out, cringing as his bellowing shot pain through his head.

  “Give her a moment,” Liadan suggested. “She is finishing a ceremony for the Tengu laid to rest here. They were quite significant to be buried in such a lavish manner.”

  Heavy steps trod over to them. “These ancestors are the geomancers who sealed the dragon within the earth,” Esker said in her rumbling voice. “There are friezes along the walls celebrating the roles your two people played in that binding.”

  “Can you play a role in freeing my spear?” Eógan asked as he tried to tug it loose.

  As soon as his hand contacted the wood of the shaft, he heard a familiar voice, “There you are, I am glad you did not perish. Had you wielded me like a warrior, we could have slain those monsters.”

  “I missed you too,” Eógan muttered back.

  Esker misconstrued his statement and thought it was directed at her. “I… uh am pleased that you are recovering rapidly,” the Tengu answered haltingly.

  Eógan looked up at her and noticed the large armlet. “Will you look at that, I like it! How is that fair, you got fancy jewelry and all I got was a concussion,” he groused.

  “The real treasure is the friends we make along the way,” Esker’s face remained still, but her eyes twinkled.

  Eógan laughed. “You are getting better at jokes, Esk. Will you lend your hand?” He tugged again at the spear, it would not budge. While they bantered, Liadan wandered off to examine the artwork carved into the stone walls.

  Esker ran her hand across the stone encasing the spear, admiring the liquid like state it was frozen in. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes in concentration. The stone ebbed like a tide retreating, drawing back into the tiled floor. By the time it receded past the shaft of the spear, Esker was panting with effort: veins twitched upon her red brow.

  As Ronan’s spear dropped into Eógan’s hand, it spoke, “Thank your friend for me, Pecht, I had no wish to be part of a sculpture.”

  “The spear… and I thank you,” Eógan said, placing a hand on his tall friend’s shoulder. Esker seemed frustrated that she had not returned all of the shaped stone back to the floor. “It is kind what you did for your ancestors,” he added, hoping that it would help her appreciate what she had accomplished.

  “These images are amazing,” Liadan interrupted. “I am glad to see more evidence that all of our people united in the past.” The glowing light of her hands strengthened as she took in the intricate carvings. “I only wish Guillaume was here to record it in a drawing,” she added tearfully. The light of her palm flickered and waned.

  “Is there a way out of here?” Eógan asked Esker. The Tengu strolled over to the nearest wall, running her palm along the surface. Eógan found himself impressed by the scenes that the panels of art captured. It was strange to think that his people, who had become so set in isolation, had once relied upon others.

  Massive stone slab doors were framed by ornate columns on the wall opposite the way they had entered. A clear aisle ran through the room and bisected the sarcophaguses. “Will we be able to move those doors?” Eógan asked.

  Esker shook her head. “There is no mechanism within to leverage their motion, the weight of either slab is more than we could hope to collectively budge.” She moved over to a panel featuring three individuals: one Tengu, one Gaídel, and one of the True Folk. “There is a passage behind here, yet I know not how to access it.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Eógan trotted over to take a closer look. “Do you think it has to do with this fancy lass?” he said as he touched the engraved image of a True Folk shaman. His hand sunk as that part of the panel depressed with little resistance. When he pulled his hand back, it reset and was flush with the rest of the image.

  “Perhaps it requires the spirit of cooperation,” Liadan suggested with a weak smile, as she pressed on the representation of a Gaídel. It sunk into the panel. “Join me,” she encouraged. When the three of them pressed the images in unison, there was a muffled grinding noise as the entire panel sunk backwards onto a track, moved several hands deeper, and then slid into the wall. A dark corridor was revealed.

  Esker tucked her insect limb weapon on her shoulder and gathered up Guillaume in her arm. “Follow me,” she said as she stepped into the secret passageway.

  ———

  With Esker in the lead, they exited the narrow corridor and entered a shabby room. Heavy dust clung to the corners of the neglected space, furniture moldered from age and disuse. The grandness of the temple had been lost to the inevitable march of time. “Many traditions have fallen out of favor with my people,” Esker offered to Eógan and Liadan, but mostly to the temple ruins. The massive slab doors of the burial chamber were fronted by an altar on this side of the wall. Once ornate carvings were masked by a layer of grime and shrines for offerings were bare. The recessed ambient lighting was stronger in this chamber, Liadan appeared to have no difficulty seeing. She dropped her hands to her sides and ceased generating intermittent light of her own.

  There were clear signs of traffic across the floor, large steps that matched the relative size of Esker’s feet. Eógan noticed crude bedding tucked into one corner. “Someone is living here,” he announced as he investigated further. There was a tidiness to this portion of the temple that was absent elsewhere. Two hallways branched off from this main area, however, the only evidence of steps led to the far side of the room towards a large arched exit.

  “We should make haste,” Liadan insisted. “We need to find Guillaume help.”

  “Your companion is dead,” Ronan’s voice whispered in his ear. The tone lacked the cruelty of earlier exchanges and was matter of fact.

  Eógan exchanged a surreptitious glance with Esker and they seemed to be on the same page. “If we follow these footprints, we may come across someone who can help us,” he offered diplomatically. Esker appeared grateful for his tact and marched ahead. After passing through a small antechamber, they entered a world that Eógan was not prepared for. He had been in caves before, but nothing like the expansive cavern he now found himself within. The temple was on a rocky rise, oversized steps led down to the worn foundations of what remained of smaller outbuildings. Towering fungus overgrew the delicate walkways. Eógan was struck by the harsh lines and grid-like layout of the compound. His people had a much more relaxed approach when it came to gathering places, part of ones expression was in how one connected to the natural world; this rigidity and order felt confining.

  Movement scuttled within the oversized stems of the fungal growth. “Should we be concerned by those… whatever they are?” Eógan asked. The creatures were adept at snaking through the forest-like weave of mushroom stalks and were the size of large dogs.

  “Those are diplurans,” Esker replied casually. “Notice their tail sections.” She pointed as one of the elongated insects skittered, low to the ground on stubby legs, across the stone pathway in front of them. Strange beadlike antennae quivered, Eógan was unable to detect any eyes on the pale creature. The tail ended in a pair of similar appendages as the antennae. “See how their cerci are filamentous? As if they were packed with small threads?” she asked.

  “Whatever it is, it makes my skin crawl,” Liadan interjected. Eógan noticed with a smirk that she had positioned herself behind both of her companions.

  Esker’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “They are harmless.” She looked down at the Jotling’s limp body. “It reminds me of a cave Guillaume and I escaped through. We encountered springtails and he nearly jumped into the ceiling when he spotted one.” Her face became more grim. “Not all diplurans have such gentle qualities, the differences lie in the shape of their tail sections: if they are shorter and pincer-like, they are dangerous predators. We should also be wary of predators who might hunt these foragers,” the Tengu said as she swept her gaze back and forth to scan the area.

  “What hunts them?” Eógan was not sure he truly wished to know the answer.

  “Plenty of things: spiders, remipedes, centipedes, pseudoscorpions, other diplurans, giant salamanders, and harvestmen,” Esker listed nonchalantly and when she reached the end of her list, she shrugged the shoulder her weapon was slung over. “This is a harvestman’s forelimb.”

  Eógan and Liadan shared a look of mutual horror.

  “Spiders large enough to capture a creature that size?” Liadan’s eyes were wide.

  “Naturally,” Esker continued, oblivious to their discomfort. “Most spiders in the womb of the world are at least as large as me.”

  “They are what?!” Eógan and Liadan shrilly harmonized.

  “That is not counting their legs, only their body segments.” They both stared at Esker, Eógan started praying to his people’s many gods that this was another example of their Tengu companion’s newfound humor. “What? Why are you both looking at me?”

  Eógan put his free hand on his hip and pursed his lip. “Are you speaking true friend, wishing nightmares upon me so that I will never again sleep soundly?”

  Esker’s face crumpled in deep-set concern. A long moment passed before she cracked. When she was done laughing she assured them that most spiders were merely similar in size to the diplurans they had spotted. Her mirth disappeared. “However, in the deep-caves, a few spiders are larger than adult Tengu. We would do well not to encounter any.” As they trudged onward, both Liadan and Eógan made sure to stay even closer to Esker.

  ———

  Everything about this underground world felt wrong to Eógan, the size and scale of the bizarre and predominantly insect based fauna, as well as the claustrophobic differences of the environ itself. The caverns fluctuated from being so expansive the roof was only visible as a seemingly star speckled expanse, to being so cramped that even his small stature was challenged. He had never seen Esker thriving like this, this alien land was undeniably her home. How she managed to avoid bashing her head against rocky outcrops baffled him, his already injured head was taking a beating.

  “Shh,” Esker teased with a finger over her lips, as his toes sent yet another slate-like piece of rock tumbling cacophonously down a slope.

  Eógan felt chastened and suddenly had sympathy for how his friend must have felt maneuvering through the forests that were part of his natural habitat. “Esk, can you teach me how to move without disturbing this scree?” he asked as conciliatory gesture.

  “Gladly,” his friend replied, her eyes shining. “Debris like this is generally a sign of an unstable ceiling, we should be cautious passing through this area and speak in low volumes.” She then demonstrated how placed her foot to test the stability of any shifting rocks, it was remarkably similar to a fox-trot when moving through leaf coverage. “You can use your toes as feelers, like the antennae of diplurans.” The Tengu’s long feet were graceful in finding placement that did not disturb any of the surrounding chunks of stone. Eógan wiggled his toes in mimicry, attempting to get a feel for the skill she was teaching.

  Liadan stared down at her well worn travel boots. “I will keep these on, especially now that we know what else lurks in the dark.” Eógan smiled at Esker, but did not blame Liadan in the slightest.