Marbles: The Hawk Who Refused to Die a Virgin

Chapter 21. Giant Cave Shrimp, Revelations

It seemed that after months of hiking, of barely squeezing through tight spaces, of holding Languin's hand while Lucy chanted healing spells over a little gnome kneecap split in half by sharp stone, that they had finally reached the bottom of Hawk Mountain.

The river that they had followed from the beginning ended in a huge underground lake. They could hear their voices echoing in the biggest cavern they had yet encountered, but Opal couldn't see anything past the glow of his moonflower crown. He placed the crown around Marbles's neck like the bird had just gotten off a plane to Honolulu, and the hawk flew off to make a scouting run and illuminate the lake.

He flew low over the dark water, the wind from his wings troubling it like an angel's spirit, the pink light thrown from the petals on his glowing shoulders painting the lake in a pink disco corona that followed the hawk as he made widening circles to ascertain the length and breadth of the body of water.

It was the most flying that Marbles had been able to do in months. He felt a great sense of relief. He was beginning to enjoy flight. The largest chambers in the cave had been like training wheels for the sky and now he felt stronger than ever.

Marbles's crown had begun to brighten the wall on the other side of the lake, indicating an end to the vast chamber, when a second, much brighter light kicked on under him.

A twenty foot tall, crystalline arthropod began to glow with a huge white light that shone from the shimmering, translucent breastplate of its chest. Opal could just make out the creature's antennae, which curled down and bobbed slowly like they were two bamboo rods held by ghostly grandparents fiercely fishing for the lost soul of their comatose granddaughter. Opal had seen this kind of creature before, only it had been much smaller, when Languin had taken him searching for cave shrimp on the gray banks of the underground river.

"There it is!" shouted Languin, his preternaturally accurate elven eyes dilating wide in surprise. Elven eyes rarely dilate open, usually they can see so well that their pupils remain pinpricks in whatever gem the god of elves had bemusedly inlaid under their infant eyelids, so it kind of freaked Opal and Lucy out to see him so entranced by something. Plus he was shouting, which was a rare volume setting for the staid elf.

And he was off! Languin sprinted down a ledge of rock that circumscribed the outside of the gigantic chamber. Opal and Lucy toddled after him, but there was no catching up to an elf. Languin was hauling ass towards the raised dais of wet stone that held the gigantic shrimp.

To another elf, Languin would have appeared to display the same level of athleticism as your long retired uncle did when he ran across a cruise ship dining hall to give the Heimlich to one of his war buddies, but to Lucy, a running Languin seemed the ideal of elven grace, so fleet of foot and tight of butt, that she wouldn't be surprised if he cut out the middleman and ran straight across the water.

"It is so weird for him to leave us like that," said Lucy.

"I know it's super weird," said Opal. "He's always like, 'Safety in numbers,' and 'Survival is a numbers game' and stuff."

Languin dashed up the steps of what turned out to be the shattered remnants of a dwarven gazebo that had fallen through the ceiling and onto a rocky outcropping a hundred odd years ago. He paid no attention to the shrimp as he fell to his knees and picked up his prize--the lamp, which had fallen down the hole that Opal had inadvertently tossed it through, some long dark months ago.

Immediately Languin knew that something was wrong. It was like that time your cat got attacked by these dumbass neighborhood dogs and you scooped him still breathing and meowing into a box and rushed him to the vet but you knew as soon as you opened that box in the veterinarian's examination room and looked inside and saw that there was no way that cat could still be alive.