8. Fire and fishbones

This day is getting a little too interesting

To all my readers: it is a delight to share this world with you. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Special thanks to my paid subscribers for choosing to support a humble Substack novelist. Merry Christmas! —A.M. Ward

This is an installment in a serialized novel. To start at the beginning, go here.

Oweth was crying. Hal held him in the darkness. He felt momentarily paralyzed by the shock of it all– it seemed like moments ago, he had been lying in the sun, and now… was this the end for them? He breathed in the stale, clammy air and shivered. He had never thought much about his own death. And yet, he thought he could bear it. But Oweth… he held back the sob that tried to rise from his throat. He had to be strong– he would be strong for his brother.

His mind sought for hope. Maybe his family would find the hole and dig them out. But… they had no way of knowing that Hal and Oweth were buried there. Or maybe he could dig a tunnel to the surface? No– that was a false hope. The volume of earth that had collapsed above them had been too great. That left only one hope, one thing to try– and Hal was not one to sit and die in despair when there was still action left to take.

“Oweth,” Hal held the boy’s face in his hands. “Oweth, listen to me. We need to be brave.”

The little boy’s cries slowed. “I’m not brave like you, Hal,” he sniffled.

Hal’s heart throbbed in his chest. Bravery hadn’t helped him get his brother out of this mess. “It’s okay– we’ll be brave together. We’re going to do some exploring.” Hal felt around him. The cave was tall enough for him to stand if he crouched over a bit. “I want you to hold onto my shirt and stay right behind me. Can you do that?”

Oweth continued to sniffle, but Hal felt the boy grip his shirt tightly.

It was slow going. Hal kept his hands against the cold rock on either side. Oweth followed close, almost on top of him. The ground was uneven, but they seemed to be in a sort of tunnel. And were they… climbing slightly? Hal felt a faint quiver of hope.

The top of Hal’s head knocked slightly against the tunnel ceiling. He put a hand on the rock above him. The opening was growing smaller. Hal crouched lower. At last, he knelt to crawl.

“Oweth, hold onto my boot.” He made his way forward slowly. The crevice seemed to be closing, and he was not eager to reach the end.

Hal’s hands didn’t feel as cold anymore. They must be getting numb from the cold, damp rock. But the rock felt drier than before and–yes, it was warmer! Why…

“Hal! There’s light!” Oweth crammed forward, peering between Hal’s arms.

Were they imagining things? Or could they now make out the faintest glimmer of light ahead?

“Let’s go, Oweth!” They crawled faster now. Then the ceiling began to rise again, and Hal stood. The light was growing brighter, and Hal noticed that he had stopped shivering. The air was pleasantly warm now. But the light… the light seemed warm as well. Not like daylight. And it seemed to be flickering slightly.

The tunnel curved slightly. Suddenly they emerged into a large cavern. And there, in a rough alcove on one side, burned a fire.

Hal stood at the mouth of the tunnel, exhaling slowly, letting himself feel some a measure of relief. Someone had made that fire. That meant someone had been here… and that meant there was a way out.

“Hello?” he ventured. There was no answer– just the crackle of the fire, the sound of water trickling, and… was that the sound of wind whistling somewhere above?

“Hello!” Oweth’s high-pitched voice echoed loudly in the cavern.

“Shh, Oweth–we don’t know who lives here.”

“Whoever it is, they made a fire, and the fire is bright, and that means I like them.” After the absolute blackness of the tunnel, the small fire did look incredibly bright. But the flickering light only illuminated part of the chamber, which–based on the echoes– seemed large. Oweth pushed ahead of Hal, running over to the fire. He reached out his hands to warm them.

Hal followed more slowly–the warmth did feel good. The small woodfire was set in a natural alcove. Maybe the whistling was coming from the chimney? Hal peered in. There was no chimney, no gap in the rock. “Oweth,” Hal’s hand tightened on the boy’s shoulder.

“Ouch,” Oweth shrugged the hand off. “What?”

“Oweth, there’s no smoke from this fire.”

Oweth’s eyes grew wide with delight. “A magic fire!” He danced around a bit–he seemed almost to have forgotten about the terror of a few minutes before.

Hal’s stomach grew tense again. Who lived here? Oweth’s rhyme came unwelcome back to his mind. Sinkholes, getting buried alive, magical fires... This day was proving a little too interesting. He looked around, inspecting the part of the cavern that was illuminated in the flickering light. Water trickled from a crack in one of the walls, gathering in a small pool on the ground before flowing out into the darkness in a small rivulet. His eyes followed the rock wall up from the pool. There was a crevice in the ceiling. And there, far up above, was a star.

Hal smiled. It felt like they had been underground for ages, but Hal was sure that it was still daylight outside. That tiny twinkle of light wasn’t a star– it was the sun, twinkling through a crack.

“Hal! Look– this must be a house for fish.”

Hal looked down again. Oweth had wandered away from the fire, looking around. He had something in his hands. Hal approached to take a closer look. Fishbones. Oweth was holding some, and he pointed to the ground. Fishbones lay scattered over the floor on this side of the cave. Hal only seen fish a couple times in his life, and never living. They populated the underground rivers, but people didn’t eat them–they were creatures of the darkness, people said, along with rats, worms, and other unclean things.

“Fish live in water, Oweth. This isn’t a house for fish– this is the house of someone that eats them.” Hal felt cold in spite of the fire. What kind of person would eat so many fish and leave the bones strewn about like this? “Oweth, we need to get out of here. There must be a way.” But they needed light to find it. He walked back to the fire. Hesitating for only a moment, he kicked out a small log from the flames. He took off his shirt, smiling a little as he thought of the face his mother would make when she saw it. The shirt was badly ripped and filthy beyond belief. He wrapped it around the unlit base of the stick and lifted it. It was a poor torch, but it would do.

“Stay close to me, Oweth.”

“Wait, I want one too!”

“Oweth, keep your shirt on!” But the little boy had already started to pull off his shirt. Hal sighed and kicked another, smaller log out of the fire.

With their makeshift torches, they began exploring further into the cavern. There were fishbones everywhere– but it didn’t smell like the fish carcasses his brother Selip had shown him, Hal noticed. These bones had been here a long time.

“I hear something Hal.”

“Yes, the wind must be blowing over an opening above, making the whistling sound.”

“Not the wind. Something else.”

Hal listened. It was quiet, but Hal could hear something from the darkness ahead. Breathing.

At that moment, Oweth tripped, giving a yelp. His brand flew out of his hand, landing ahead on the cavern floor.

The light of the torch glinted off an eye. Then another yellow eye opened, and a mouth full of sharp teeth widened in a roar as a huge creature lumbered to its feet.

“Bear,” whispered Oweth.

Hal had seen bears before. But this was a monster– three or four times the size of an ordinary brown bear. And it was not happy to be awake.

The creature roared again, swinging its head in a circular motion. Its eyes looked wild. It lunged forward.

Hal leapt in an instant, pushing Oweth back, tearing the sickle from his belt. “Oweth! Get back to the tunnel!”

And then the bear was upon him. It swatted him easily with a huge paw. Hal flew across the chamber, landing hard on the rock. He lay there gasping. Oweth had run for the tunnel. The bear approached Hal slowly, grunting and shaking its head, madness in its eyes. Hal pulled himself painfully to a crouch, muscles tensed, fingers tightening on the handle of his sickle. The farmer’s tool looked like a toy in the presence of the monster approaching him.

The bear ran at him, moving with surprising speed. With all his strength, Hal swung the sickle at the huge face as he sprang away with a burst. The blade cut a shallow gash along the side of the creature’s head. Hal readied himself for the next attack–it would take a lot more than that to stop an animal this size.

But the creature did not attack again. It had pulled back, up onto its haunches. Its face– so expressive for an animal–seemed surprised, confused… and annoyed. The bear shook its head as if to clear its mind. Then it said, “Cursed beard of Barabar! So hungry… such a nice dream… ”