.
Once we set down on the ‘island’ — or rather, one of the strips of land against the cavern wall that Diurhimath was calling an ‘island’– I delivered Brigitte back to the ground.
“I’m getting really sick of getting carried this way,” she groused.
We were standing on a hummock rising behind the grasses and rushes along the shore. Trees filled the space behind us, between the hummock and the wall. This location was the triangular chamber at the intersection of the two side caverns, the closest spot possible to the space beyond the rock to our west where Amelia waited.
Or call it a truncated triangle. The merger of the two caverns ended not in a point but in a flat surface, about a half mile wide. We were on the opposite wall to that flat, where the intersection formed a corresponding hundred-pace-wide coffin corner. Our ‘island’ ran the full length of the base of the wall.
After expanding my senses and taking note of two medium-sized fire gators slumbering fifty paces to our south, I looked around at the landscape.
“I honestly can’t understand how these islands formed. This spot was fifteen paces up the wall at one time, wasn’t it? How did a mound this high off the bottom of the lake even form?”
After all, no landslides came down from these cavern walls, and no currents in these placid waters mounded up silt and sand.
Diur looked around at it, then shrugged. “I’ve only been here a couple weeks. I couldn’t give you a definitive answer. However, next to the motion of the continent itself, the biggest forces shaping the landscape in these caverns are the living beings. Giant swimming beasts may have mounded the dirt up from the bottom or pushed it around. There are monsters that build mounds and cairns purposefully, as well. Ilim Below is fourteen thousand years old, after all. Ample time for all kinds of events.”
He then pointed across the water to the opposite wall. “By now, you know the difficulty of getting to where your princess is.”
“Yet you found a way to get them there,” I said.
“The knight with your princess has powerful water skills,” he stated. “She’s highly accomplished at magically-enhanced swimming. She was able to follow as I carried the princess through.”
“But I couldn’t sense an open passage. The one I found was completely choked with silt.”
“The largest passage remains open,” he answered. “The other cavern is higher by about thirty paces. The current from water draining out of that cavern into this cavern might be what is keeping it open. Or, someone or something might be purposefully keeping it clear.”
I frowned. “How far is the passage flooded?”
“About a half a mile, although it doesn’t matter,” he stated. “You only need to descend, swim to the first stairwell, then ascend back to the air. The upper stories of the complex are open. But that’s a dive of fifteen paces, a swim of thirty, and an ascent of another fifteen. The knight was able to do that. If you are not, then I will have to bring one of you through while the other waits here. Are you two willing to trust me when I separate you?”
I had a rough grasp of how Grandmother managed to swim so fast using mana, and a rough start on doing it for myself, but could I manage it?
No, that wasn’t a problem. “If you can bring Amelia through, then you can bring Brigitte through. I may end up swimming slower than you, but I can breathe underwater, so I can follow you.”
“You can breathe underwater?” Brigitte asked, a little incredulous.
“My grandmother taught me,” I told her. “She’s a naiad.”
I turned back to Diur. “My concern is, how did you manage to bring Amelia through all of that? She’s no athlete.”
“She didn’t need to be,” he answered. “She was in a deep diving trance.”
“She was in a what?” I frowned.
“A very useful technique for saving mortal lives in an emergency. I’ll teach you sometime,” he answered, once again talking as if ours was a long-term association. Maybe he was assuming I needed a parent and he was planning to take on the role? When this was over, I was going to have to set the man straight. Maybe I would get Mother to do it for me.
Brigitte turned and began walking toward the trees. “If we’re going for a swim, let’s find a good spot to stow our stuff.”
I wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but she was right. I had a dress and a few other spares tightly rolled up in my pack which wouldn’t be a big deal, but there were food supplies and other items that submersion would ruin. Besides, swimming while wearing a pack or hiking shoes would be difficult.
Then I realized, for a mortal like Brigitte, doing so was probably impossible. She wasn’t just worried about things getting wet.
I caught up to her and asked, “You sure about this? You’re willing to put your life in his hands?”
She glanced at me, then stated, “It’s not in his hands, it’s in yours. I’m depending upon you to kick his behind and save me if he turns out to be up to no good.”
“He’s awfully strong, Brigitte,” I worried.
“Have more confidence, My Lady. I saw you kill a dragon,” she answered. “You don’t even understand how amazing that is, do you?”
“Well…”
Honestly, I was so confused and scared at the time, I barely noticed how I did it. All I actually did was disable a wing, right?
No, that was the amazing part, although I didn’t realize it at a time. One simply doesn’t merely slash through a dragon’s wing. It’s far too strong for most swordsmen and most swords. It took a pure mithril blade driven by fairy vampire muscle power hyped on adrenaline to manage it.
“Besides, Bruna and Ceria told us all about how you drove that guy off twice. We need to reach the princess, so I’ll bet my life on you doing it a third time.”
Brigitte could become single minded about the mission, the same way she could become needlessly fearless during a fight. I worry for her, often.
“Our hurry doesn’t mean you should recklessly put yourself in danger,” I said.
Her only response was a shrug.
We reached the trees and Brigitte immediately began climbing one, to test the limb she had selected. I stood below and told her. “Before we agree to do this, let me do a dive on my own. I want to see how well I can swim it before you depend upon me to rescue you.”
“Sure,” she said as she climbed out on a limb about two paces up. She bounced a bit, nodded satisfaction at its strength, then hopped down.
Diur was waiting for us on the hill, so I guessed he was planning to just bring that satchel at his side with him.
I quickly switched things out between my pack and my belt-wallet, which I planned to keep. A couple pieces of hardtack and the papers for Arken’s ‘returning bird’ messages went into the pack, along with my shoes. I stuffed some of my jerky and dried fruit into the wallet, since I figured they would survive the water, and also tucked in my silk slippers.
While I was stripping off my socks, Brigitte removed her leather armor. All she wears underneath is a simple garment that southern Orestanian women sometimes wear on their chest. It’s sort of a cross between a Chinese dudou and a halter top. It doesn’t support the bosom as well as the chemise that northern women wear, so Melione doesn’t use it, but many women from their home region, which is in the border region between north and south, apparently do.
“You’re stripping down that far?” I asked, surprised.
“I can’t exactly swim in my leathers, My Lady,” she responded, a little perplexed. Well, for a mortal, it was common sense.
Then her kilt also came off, leaving just her breechcloth underneath. I saw her cheeks coloring, something I had never seen on Brigitte before. Her socks and shoes were next.
I asked her, “Do you want to borrow my dress?”
“I’ll manage,” she said tightly.
We hung our packs from the tree, or rather, Brigitte hung them after I handed them up. She frowned at me, still wearing my sword harness, with sword, belt-wallet and knife equipped, and shook her head.
“I can swim with this,” I assured her before she objected.
“Yeah, I know,” she griped as she hopped down. “Show-off.”
I glanced at her bare feet and asked, “Shall I carry you back?”
“Fox feet are tough,” she said in an annoyed tone as she set off for the summit where Diur was waiting. “I’ll be fine.”
They looked like completely human feet to me, but she didn’t hesitate as she walked.
I wasn’t in danger of being injured by thorns, thanks to the toughness of fairy skin, but it was still a bit uncomfortable. If you’re used to shoes, it’s a weird feeling. This wasn’t exactly a manicured lawn we were walking across.
“I wonder if Amelia had to strip down that far?”
“She’s a mortal, right?” Brigitte said, again sounding annoyed. I guess she wanted me to drop the subject.
Diur, who had kept his back to us until now, nodded as we arrived. I told him what I wanted to do. He held his chin while thinking, then nodded.
“You could get lost if you try to swim it on your own, so I will send a proxy to guide you.”
“A proxy?” I asked. “Is that part of your spirit magic?”
“Spiritual magic,” he corrected. “Spirit magic means employing spirits to do jobs for you. And yes it is. A proxy is like an outrider, except it can show me pictures and sounds and I can use it to fight. You probably felt me using my proxies in that fight with the demon general. I’m sure you were close enough.”
I nodded. “I did. All that mana was being thrown around through these proxies?”
“The impacts that were powerful enough for you to feel were the occasions when I self-destructed them,” he explained, then opened his hand, palm up. Something similar to a Wind spirit, but much thinner, as if it had been diluted, floated up out of his hand. It expanded into a human figure, which became visible. It looked a bit like one of those posable artist manikins, except translucent.
He used these things on suicide missions?
It floated up into the air, then tipped and flew forward toward the opposite wall several paces. It stopped there and turned around, waiting for me.
I looked at Brigitte. She looked nervous, since I was about to leave her with this stranger, but she nodded.
I grew my wings, then sprang into the air. The manikin turned and flew across the water.
“What do you think, Old Man?” I asked under my breath as I followed it.
I think you are going along with this because you don’t want to disrespect the young huntress’s resolve. It isn’t wrong of you, but it’s the wrong reason, if you have honest concerns.
I didn’t reply to that. It wasn’t an answer to the question I was asking. But he then gave me one.
You might not be strong enough on your own, My Lady, but you and I together can take him, if this proves to be a betrayal.
It felt a little like overconfidence, but that’s not a trait that Durandal usually exhibits. I didn’t have time to reply though, because the manikin had reached the spot it was aiming for. It turned upside down and dove into the water head first.
