Cytha crawled through the jagged stone crevice, third in a row, this one the narrowest yet. Dank, wet, cutting, the stone clawed at her black clothes leathery wings and even snagged her hair. Free at last of the tight passage, she forced her main body out overtop of her feet and stood straight, unraveling her hair from where it clung tight against her shoulders and face. The drips from her soaked clothes made a mournful plopping on the stone of the new cavern floor.
“Finally made it?” her impudent friend said as he stretched side-to-side like a screw, shaking water from his long mane like a half-tame lion. A skinny one.
“Your smile’s on crooked,” she muttered. “You ass.” Finally made it? He was asking for it now. Only a few hours with the Beastborn boy and he was getting on her every nerve. At first she’d thought him quiet and intense, but he was showing himself to be as carefree as he was wild. At least, she was usually a keen reader of subtle cues of body and vocals, and this was her impression.
Pock made no reply, instead trudging off, wiry legs marching and sending up small splashes where water covered this new surface—to no surprise of hers. With a low sigh, she trudged after him. Getting mixed up with an elementalist had certainly not been on her list, but then, neither had the unexpected anticlimax of the festival games. That Harbinger had descended and made a sudden end to the bloody games of the Bat Tribes . . . and Cytha was still uncertain whether to be happy or angry for it.
Happy, surely . . . yet the heavy, sinister foreboding of the Earth had followed them all the way in, and kept her on edge at all times. The hole had taken them up east of the buried city of Nebula, and they were now easily at the depth—or rather, height—of Nebula’s uppermost reaches, unless the rumors were true that they extended all the way up into the belly of the Earth? Children’s stories, surely. The Harbinger or Magnates would have pointed them there in that case, rather than toward the relatively nondescript opening to the east.
The tunnel narrowed back down and soon split, but Pock navigated this new labyrinth with seeming confidence even as he had the previous one. The boy had a natural instinct for directions, although it was not clear whether it was half bravado, or he truly had a talent for it. It was said that some were born with such instincts, but this was the stuff of legends and wives tales. Cytha had no reason to believe such stories and nonsense. Cytha was pragmatic, and distrustful to boot.
Suddenly Pock stopped, holding out a hand at waist height, like an absent-minded signal for her to stop. She trailed after him, listening intently.
The tunnel yawned before them, inviting in a dark way, shortly before branching off to one side. It did not strike her as a true intersection or choice. Proceeding on would be the logical choice. The boy’s sharp ears had heard something. Shortly after, she heard it as well: a low moaning, not of something living. It was accompanied by a rising shudder, which dissipated shortly after reaching a crescendo.
This had not been the first; would it be the last?
Pock started on, and she followed after. Not certain which direction he took, she simply followed the Beastborn boy’s instincts . . . until he was gone. She rounded a corner and was hit with a disorienting wave of darkness, darkness of all senses, and when it all rushed back a moment later . . . he was gone. Where was she? The pale veins of light which had lit their way thus far were dimmer and farther between now, and she groped the close walls of her path as she went. Paranoia and claustrophobia threatened to overwhelm her.
“Pock!” She cried out, immediately sure that he couldn’t hear her. “Pock, you filthy trickster!”
No response came in the ensuing minute, as she bent with arms touching the moist walls and gasped out her frustration and fear. She didn’t think this was actually Pock’s doing . . .
“Cytha of the Eclipsis, no?” came a hissing voice from behind.
She jerked around to see a pair of large, golden eyes glowing in the dark. What in all Earthly hells . . . The form was obscured in thick darkness, but it was clearly batlike. And tall. As she watched, sure enough, the shape unfolded its midnight wings and leered at her from upside down through eerie yellow eyes. Its body was covered in dark fur, and its face was entirely like a bat’s. One of the ancient Eclipsis Order . . . ? But no, that didn’t make sense. Not here.
The huge bat unfurled its wings, clutching at the wall with its wingclaws, and deftly dropped to the ground, landing right-side-up. “‘What am I?’ you are asking yourself. I am a Harbinger, and I have been sent to aid you in your quest.”
“To reach the top of the Earth? You’re going to . . . help me?” Her distrust was kicking in strongly.
“In a way. Consider me a benefactor.”