33 | Tree Climb

Grinning for what feels like the first time in weeks, Eli pokes further at the sand. Brushing a good bit of it away, handfuls more cave into an open section beneath one of the largest roots. Eli can’t be certain if it’s just a gap under this root created by the shifting nature of sand, or if it leads to something more, but it is something.

“Klia!” he calls, unable to see the girl from this angle. “Come here a moment.”

If he goes poking around in this hole, he wants her to be with sight. Her fair head of hair appears around the edge of the tree, more berries on her face. Her eyes get big when she realizes what he’s found, and she scrambles over the roots to hide behind his leg and peek around at the dim hole.

“See anything down there?” Eli asks.

She nods.

“Does it go down farther?”

Another nod.

“Anything alive you can see?”

She pokes one of the roots.

“But not monsters?”

She shakes her head and creeps a little closer.

“Hold on now, I’m going to go a few steps in, don’t get too close to the edge.”

This isn’t the first time in the past few days they’ve found a hole to crawl into some unknown depths, and Eli has more trepidation about this one after all the trouble these caverns have caused, however deep they’ve ventured already.

Keeping a handful of the dimly glowing bees in his sore hand, he uses his strong arm to hold tight to the root and lean down in. Sand shifts beneath his boots, but there are uncountable numbers of twisted roots of all shapes and sizes for him to find footholds in. Their bark is rougher than the trunk itself, and he wonders if the harsh sand is to blame. Briefly, he considers dropping one of the petrified bees into the hole below, to see how far its dim light will travel. But he already lost several in the skirmish with the floating creature, he is loath to get rid of any more. Not when light is so scarce down here and not enough firewood is available to light a torch for any permanent length of time.

Feeling around through the underside of the tree’s root structure, he finds a gap up through. By all means, it may lead up through the top of it. If Eli can leave this place by traveling up rather than further into the depths of these mountains, he would much prefer it.

Glancing at Klia, he considers leaving her here while he better looks into this new pathway up the tree. She is looking at him with wide, trusting eyes, and he quickly puts aside the thought. Even if he could trust her to stay right where she is with no wandering about, he doesn’t trust this tree still won’t decide to come alive.

There are so many strange monsters after these children, after all.

He wishes Thistle would appear once more with hopefully more helpful answers, but he cannot rely on such a thing occurring again. He has not put aside the suspicion that the first time was not some sort of figment of his imagination manipulated by the Order.

Still, he asks, “Has Thistle said anything to you in your dreams about where he is?”

Wrinkling her nose, she shakes her head. Eli will should encourage her to write out the things she dreams, but that will be of little use if they cannot find their way out of this strange place.

“Let us get our things together, we’ll try to go up first. If we cannot get out through the roof of this cavern, we will go down. Hopefully, something will link back to the dwarven tunnels.”

Klia takes off like a bolt back to their little camp on the beach. Struggling after her, Eli packs away their clothing, stuffing as many berries into pouches as he can, finishing off what’s left of the soup after Klia wrinkles her nose at it. He fills the water skin from the clear lake and drinks his fill while Klia does the same.

Fire does not seem like quite the brightest idea to bring into the center of a tree, but it was quite damp inside, and the wood is green anyhow, often coated with sand. It would be better to have a bit more light, if only for a little while. He picks one of the lesser burned logs from the fire, kicking sand over the rest. His injured hand is strong enough to hold the thin log while he uses the other to climb.

Glancing at Klia, he remembers Abner often climbing every tree in sight—much to both his parents’ anxiety—and hopes his daughter has caught that particular propensity.

“Do you like to climb?” he asks.

Something akin to a grin touches her face.

“We’re going to climb rather high. There are plenty of roots and cracks inside, but you must be very careful. If you cannot go any farther, you must tell me, understand?”

She nods, tucking her mostly-dry book back in its pouch and sprinting to the tree.

Well, at least she’s ready to leave this place. Eli is as well, but worries they’re about to head into something worse. He is barely in any condition to be climbing a tree, let alone dealing with anything worse than what is going on currently.

Find the kid first, rest and heal after. You cannot lie around, old man.

When he catches up to Klia at the hole in the roots, he finds her gazing off at the underground sea once again, the same faraway expression on her face. When she turns to him, she looks as if she wishes she could ask him for answers, likely to everything, and Eli feels unequal to the job.

“Have you learned anything else from the water?” he asks, ignoring the oddity of the sentence. “Seen anything else?”

She shakes her head.

“Do you still see the waterfall?”

A nod.

“Then it would not be a very fair direction to follow for us, hmm?”

Again, she wrinkles her nose, this time shaking her head more certainly. Eli is relieved. He didn’t want to tell her it is impossible for them to swim out, and there is nothing on which they could float.

Besides, Eli does not believe either of them would survive a massive waterfall.

With his sickle fastened tight to the side of his pack where he cannot drop it, Eli eases back down in the cool dark of the roots, ignoring his irritated arm. In the dark, the warm crackle of the torch is a comfort, casting welcoming orange fingers of light into the center of all the roots. Even up into the truck, whatever crack has split it open is jagged and ancient enough that there are plenty of places to hold onto. Eli tests his weight and steps up with much more ease than he was anticipating with his injured arm holding the torch.

Klia, happy as a clam, clambers up nearby him at a much quicker speed. It’s good she’s going above him, where embers won’t fall from the torch, but it concerns him nonetheless. He cannot help but think if these children do have a mother out there somewhere, she would be quite cross with him for all this danger. 

Lyra would scold me. She would have no better alternative in his position, but she would scold him nonetheless. Eli smiles a little into his beard, making his way up after the child.

“Stay within the light,” he tells her, and she gives him a wave as if this is all good fun.

Up and up they climb. Often, Eli calls to the child who has far too much energy to pause, while he finds a place to sit within the cracked inner trunk of the massive tree. He runs his finds along the dark wood and wonders what type of tree it is, and if there is anything living inside it. So far, they have found nothing of note on this strange little island, but he is not comforted by moments of calm.

No such thing as night and day exists in this place, so he has no concept of how long they climb. It seems longer than it likely is, given the painful exhaustion of his old joints and the stinging ache of his arm. Still, he manages to keep a good hold of the torch, and it doesn’t burn down too much.

Eventually, even Klia looks exhausted when Eli catches up to her sitting in one of the cracks. When he dares to glance down, he is grateful it is too dark to see the fall.

“Almost to the top, I should think,” he tells her.

As he hoped and prayed, when they reach the top, it is not sealed by impenetrable wood. The gap out is small enough he must shove his pack out first, but manages to fit his shoulders out, and something akin to a breeze touches his cheeks.