Sember (Forestfolk, Book 2)

Chapter 20b

After a fortifying nap, we prepared to enter the unknown. Jastin pulled two torches from the pack and handed me one.

I shook my head. "I don't need it. I am a torch."

"I think you should conserve your energy." He held the torch out to me.

Before my perilous trek through a blizzard with bare feet and a near-frozen brother, I would have stubbornly refused. But now that I knew I had limits, I accepted the torch, recognizing the wisdom behind his words.

I shouldered my pack, lit both torches with quick snaps of my fingers, and in we went.

For several minutes, we had to crouch under the low ceiling as we shuffled along. Tree roots dangled from above, and dirt crumbled onto me when I scraped against them. Then, finally, the cavern opened up.

"Thank goodness," I said as I arched my back. "I was starting to feel like an eighty-year-old woman!"

"Are you saying the elderly are decrepit?"

I thought of Davin back in Foresthome, whose hands shook while he worked. "Aren't they?"

"My grandfather bedded maidens until the day he died."

I burst out laughing. The sound echoed against the stone walls and into the far reaches of the dark cavern.

I cringed. If there was anything living in here, it certainly knew about us now.

"Perhaps we should continue more quietly," Jastin whispered.

I nodded in agreement and looked around us. Our torches lit up the cavern walls, revealing . . . nothing. Just rock and dirt. A dark hole on the far side indicated the only direction in which we could advance.

We slipped through the opening, and now it seemed more like a tunnel than a cave. I brushed my hand along one wall, noting its rough-hewn sandstone texture. It looked as if it had been hacked at with tools. "Does this seem natural to you?" I kept my voice low.

He looked at the coarse walls around us and shook his head. His grip on the torch tightened, and we continued on.

The tunnel eventually opened up to another cavern, only this one was different.

Very different.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" I rubbed my eyes and looked again.

Jastin didn't answer. His eyes roamed the walls and ceiling. Embedded into the surface were countless gleaming, white, angular... rocks?

I had no idea what they were. I'd never seen anything like them.

"What are they?" I asked, barely whispering. They looked so beautiful, so delicate, like maybe a loud sound might shatter them.

"I've only heard stories about these." The reverence in his tone was evident. "They're crystals. They form in ancient caves."

"Are they... dangerous?" I wanted to touch one, but didn't want to get sick. "Could these be what Dozan's father encountered?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "There are legends about heroes being born from crystals, but none of them say anything about disease."

Emboldened, I stepped closer to a particularly large formation and tapped my torch against it. It felt solid. "They don't look dangerous to me. Well, unless you throw me against them. That might hurt."

Jastin chuckled and wandered farther into the crystal-encrusted cavern. He touched one of the shiny protrusions with a fingertip.

Nothing happened.

The orange glow of our torches cast all sorts of strange, translucent shadows along the walls. I thought I saw movement from the corner of my eye and quickly turned my head. Shadows jumped and danced around the crevices and crystal formations. Nothing else.

A sudden gust of wind lifted my braid and blew the torches out.

A tittering sound echoed through the cavern.

The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up.

"Sember, was that you?" I heard Jastin's voice, not far away in the pitch-black.

"I do not laugh like that," I replied as I engulfed my hand in fire and raised it above my head. "Where did that wind come from?"

Jastin edged closer to me. "I don't know."

Another short gust blew at me, this time from behind. The flames on my hand fluttered wildly.

I spun around, but saw nothing. "What's going on here?"

Jastin touched his torch to my flaming hand to relight it. "I think there's something in here with us."

I snapped my head toward a faint scuffling sound. "I think you're right."

A few beats later, we were again blasted by a gale. The force of it extinguished all the fire, including my hand, and darkness enveloped us. Gravel scraped against the rocky floor, followed by a grunt and sounds of a scuffle.

I lit both hands this time. I found Jastin on the ground, wrestling with... something? Someone? It had pale skin and yellowish hair matted on its head. Tattered pants adorned its skinny legs.

Its wiry arms pinned Jastin down, which didn't seem possible because the creature was barely half his size. Then it blew something into his face, causing him to cough and sputter.

"Get off him!" I stomped at the creature with my boot until it rolled away and scampered back into the shadows of the crystals. I dropped to Jastin's side, who still hacked and cleared his throat. Some kind of clear fluid slicked his face. I helped him sit up.

"I think... it's human," he gasped in between coughs. "It had... blue eyes... and a nose like us."

"Human?" I looked around, trying to spot where it had gone. "What did it do to you?"

"I don't know." He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "But I feel strange."

I moved a hand to help clean his face.

"Don't!" He pushed me away with his other hand. "He sprayed me with something. You shouldn't touch it."

Dread seeped into my core. Was this the source of the plague?

What/who did they just encounter?. Vote before you finish the chapter?