Midas the Younger put the last rock over the body of Midas the Elder. The place his father lay was hardly fitting, it was a mere cave on the far side of a mountain. Burying the old man properly was an impossibility, the ground was hard and unforgiving, and to even try would have meant that he risked freezing to death himself.
A few feet away, the fire crackled and cast a hill like shadow over the big pile of rocks that served as both grave and grave marker for the old man. Midas the younger rested his hand briefly on the ice cold stone, “I’m sorry father, I couldn’t get you a better final resting place. But it could have been worse… I don’t know how it could have been worse… but there must be some way. Right?” He asked the grave, but neither it nor the body within chose to answer. In his experience, neither had much to say, and when the elder was among the living, that wasn’t much different.
“I never could quit making inappropriate jokes. Sorry, old man, I know you’d have liked some dignity at least at your funeral. But it’s just not me.” Midas the younger said with a little half smile, “You’re probably wondering… Midas my young boy, how are you going to get out of this? There’s a blizzard outside that would make the undead go back into their graves where it’s warmer. Well I’ll tell you, I’m going to hold up here until it passes and then make my way around the other side in the spring, the last village we made it to, I traded a few rings to a pretty girl for a night and she told me that there’s a new settlement on the other side of this very mountain. If I can be ‘the man’ who ties that new community to the elves and dwarves on this side, why I might just be able to open up my own shop. Our dream will come true at last.”
He patted the stone with gentle patience and shook his head, “I know, I know, old man, what about Seven Hills and one of their cities, you’re wondering. No thanks, I can’t trust that I won’t be kidnapped and thrown into a mine as a foreigner outside the law.” He looked to his left where the dead elf waited for the same treatment. “My late friend over there warned me about that… goodness knows how he ended up all the way out here, he didn’t live long enough to say… but wherever I settle, it’ll be a long way away from there. If there were such a thing as a demon city, even that might not be so bad. Not as long as there’s profit to be made, at least.”
The look of fear on the elf’s face when he saw Midas for the first time would stay with the young merchant for as long as he lived, even if he reached a thousand. The gut of the elf was distended, starvation, whether from the time laboring in whatever mine held him, or from the long exhausting flight from an enemy that he felt he would never be free of, had taken a brutal toll on his body.
But it was eating that finally killed the unfortunate. ‘If he’d just asked for my food, I would have given him some, maybe traded it for labor… but taking that much and eating too quick… he was doomed before I caught him. But at least I learned a little bit first, and he died with a full belly, not everybody gets that… cold comfort as it is.’ He reflected and turned away from the body as a chill that had nothing to do with the winter came over his body.
Midas the Younger then straightened up and rubbed his cold, red, rash covered hands against his pants and held his palms over the fire to warm them. He glanced over at the corpse of the escaped elf. “You won’t wait long, I’ll give you the same treatment, a damn sight better than what you got before… then all I can do is wait for the end myself, and hope I don’t freeze in here…” He looked into the darkness of the cavern, ‘I wonder how far it goes…’
His merchant curiosity was getting the better of him, his donkeys pawed at the stone and backed farther from the entrance. Their nickering noises might as well have been warnings for him to not go into the darkness.
He picked up his oil torch and shoved it into the fire, the sparks flew and danced in the air before dying as they cast out their brief and burning moment of warmth into the freezing air, and then he hefted the torch to add to the light and banish the shadows farther away from himself.
“Maybe… maybe I’ll just go a few feet in… the dead won’t mind… they’ve got no claim on the living anyway, you’re not in a hurry, are you?” He asked of the dead elf.
The dead elf said nothing, as the dead tended not to do.
“Say something if you mind waiting.” Midas said.
The dead elf said nothing, giving his agreement that Midas should look deeper into the cavern.
“Thank you. If by some chance I die or don’t come back, how about you run for help, eh?” Midas said to the dead man, but didn’t laugh at his own joke. Instead, Midas the Younger who was now Midas the Only, walked into the dark, leaving the wall of white behind, replacing it with the endless night that existed just out of range of the torch.
‘Just one more turn…’ He told himself as he followed the sound of running water and the whispering wind and the skittering of insects that avoided the light like vampires, until he realized… ‘I don’t know how to get back…’
“Helloooo!” Midas shouted, but only the invisible and distant walls shouted back at him, and he took another step forward into the dark unknown with nothing but his hopes to guide him.
