32 | Berries & Soup

Eli’s fingers brush across something oddly warm. It is smooth as glass and barely larger than a grape, perfectly round. Pulling it from the sand it was half-buried in, he lets it roll into his palm. A gentle blue, carved with little markings resembling tentacles, Eli rolls it between his fingers and attempts to figure out what in all the lands and below it is.

Momentarily, he wonders if it is an egg of sorts, but puts the thought aside when it tinks as glass when he taps his fingernail against it.

Klia reaches up, and Eli lets her take it. She inspects it in much the same manner and hands it back with a shrug. It is of some use as a light, Eli supposes, but not much more than the petrified bees he still has stuffed in his pockets.

“You do not know what it is?”

Klia shakes her head.

“Your father did not have anything like it?”

Another shake of the head.

Grunting at the oddity, Eli folds his fingers over it. He knows not what use it may be, but will not throw anything aside the Order has placed into his hand, no matter if he realizes the use of it or not. When he concentrates, his magic gives him no identifying information, but he is becoming used to its hesitation. Perhaps, it will eventually tell him. Perhaps Abner will know. Either way, he will keep it.

“Have you eaten anything this morning?” Eli asks. He has no idea if it is morning, but they were both sleeping, so it may as well be.

She shakes her head. For a child of her age, she doesn’t ask for much food, or complain. Eli will have to keep up on feeding her as best he can since she doesn’t bother to pester him for it.

With a groan that seems to be permanently fixed in his throat these days, he gets back to his feet and returns to the little fire. With the little pot he brought, he scoops up some of the clear water—they’ve been drinking it since they fell here, and it is quite fresher than anything Eli has come across in the lands above—and heats it over the little fire. It isn’t much of a soup, but between the dry mushrooms and salted mean they took from the store Eli has yet to dig into, it will be edible. Something hot to eat will do them well. He will have to collect as many of the fallen berries as possible, at least once they decide on a way out of this place.

And they must. There is not enough to live on down here if they are trapped.

We will find a way out.

“What would you be thinking up, Lyra?” he asks, wandering about the base of the tree as the water heats. With his thumb, he rubs into the muscles of his sore arm, avoiding the tender skin. He has nothing much he can do for this, and it is feeling every so slightly improved, as long as he does not move it too much.

“You would not get your sword arm injured by a monster thing of the ocean that’s taken to flying in the air, that’s what you’d be thinking,” he mumbles.

Not for the first time, he taps at the little dark stone of a necklace, wishing it would drag him back to his son. As always, it sits dead and useless against his chest, a rememberable and little else.

The tree is quite massive, a few dozen paces around. Still, Eli marvels at its ability to grow without sunlight. Very likely, its roots reach far down, drinking deeply from the water surrounding this little shore. On the opposite side of the tree, he finds no pathway out. More of the scraggly berry bushes carpet the sandy soil, and then there is nothing but a massive wall of a stone cavern. Up and up it goes until he loses sight of it in the dark. No carvings mark its walls suggesting there were once dwarves—or whatever else dwelled down here—making pathways to this underground sea.

Enough walking to the right or left takes him to more water and eternal darkness.

Returning to the tree, he finds Klia still safe beside the fire, wiggling her bare toes, watching the water heat to a boil. Berries are smeared around her lips, and she pops a few more into her mouth. At least they found something else nutritious to eat. She turns the pages of her damp book, getting more of the leaflets dry beside the fire.

Hand on his hip, Eli stares up at the tree. Something about it does not sit correct in his chest. Its dim light gives off the only sight in this eternal dark place, its trunk so massive it surely cannot survive down here. He knows it is quite foolish of him to insist upon things being too strange to exist, not after all these years with such strangeness, but something about it catches in his mind.

There must be a way out.

Even if there were a hole in the top of the cavern where the top of this tree reaches the barest scraps of its branches, it would not be much use to either of them. They cannot climb this giant with its branchless trunk going so high. Eli wanders about its base, again and again, tapping at it with his uninjured hand as if it will tell its secrets.

I have already found one hollow tree, why not this one as well?

“Klia?” he asks, not expecting much but never knowing. “Do you think there is anything interesting about this tree? Does your Order tell you anything?”

By the way she looks at him a little as if he’s an old man losing his mind, he supposes not.

Checking his magic once again, he wonders if minddreamer would help clear his head in this situation, but is wary to use up his daily allowance. Besides, it is for clearheadedness in battle, not to help him in matters of calm thought. These are two very different situations, he knows from experience.

Waving at him, Klia gets his attention and points to the soup. If Eli lets it boil a little longer it may fuse the flavors better into the weak broth, but the girl seems to have remembered she is hungry, and she doesn’t much like those mushrooms anyhow. Taking his single cup from his pack, he scoops out some of the soup and hands it over to her.

“Don’t burn yourself,” he warns and nods when she blows on it, something nearing happiness in her expression. She certainly is an easy-to-please little squirt.

Allowing his portion to continue cooking, Eli returns to gazing at the tree. He wanders to the water’s edge and splashes some onto his sore arm, inspecting the gash along his forearm that is not remotely healed but scabbed over enough a gentle wash will do it no harm. Still, he takes another strip of the old blanket—now dried beside the fire—to make a new bandage, and washes out the old one, hanging it alongside the fire to dry.

He watches the tree.

Using one of the little empty bags in his pack where he’s been storing his mushrooms, he collects as many fallen berries as he can stuff into it. He will have to set them into the top of the bag so they’re less likely to become crushed.

Watches the tree.

When his soup has simmered longer, he gives more to Klia and then uses her empty cup to get some of his own, not burning himself on the too-hot little pot.

Watches the tree.

Turning the strange little orb around in his fingers, he puts it to his ear to see if it sings as the creature did and finds it silent.

Watches the tree.

“Klia?” he asks as she’s stuffing more berries into her mouth. “Do you see anything above us, in the dark where I cannot see?”

Up she looks, squints, cocks her head then shakes it at Eli, shrugging.

“Hmm,” he grunts, speaking to himself more than to her. “It must go somewhere. It cannot live in pure stone, and there is sand—”

Where do the roots go?

Eyeballing the massive root system running into the sand, Eli shoves himself to his feet and meanders around the base once more, toeing at the sand with his boot. Using a dead branch to spare the edge of his sickle, he pokes about the roots—

Until the sand shifts away.