Mira's View (22 page)

“Twoit!” she yelled, causing Tark and Morgo
to start as well. “You found me! You clever little creature!” She
scooped her up and brought her to her face where she brushed her
nose against Twoit’s.

Twoit responded by nipping her nose and
squirming. Galena placed her on her shoulder, where the tiny
creature rubbed her face against the side of Galena’s.

“Be careful with that jumping,” Elenio called
when Galena started after them again. “There’s still a ceiling
here.”

Galena grimaced and then kicked out,
connecting her foot with Elenio’s backside, laughing along with
him, and feeling pleased that he could joke about the incident now.
Maybe he was accepting that this trip was going to be dangerous,
even if Galena’s biggest danger was herself. She reached out and
took his hand as they trekked behind Tark and Morgo.

After their noonday meal, Galena walked with
Morgo so they could continue her training with different magical
means of solving problems. Morgo seemed to be in such a good mood
from all the supplies they had received from the last village,
including the use of two more floating lights, that he was able to
think of more ways to handle situations. Galena’s head was starting
to ache terribly by the time that Morgo declared that they had
found a good spot to rest for the night. She assumed this was more
from her near death experience than trying to outwit Morgo, but she
kept it to herself just the same.

Morgo happily busied himself making a
vegetable stew, with bread and cheese on the side. He had even
managed to get some pieces of what looked like tiny little
strawberries, but were much sweeter than any strawberry that Galena
had ever eaten. To go with these, were some cakes that were light
and sweet as well. As he began preparing their food, Galena placed
her pack on the ground and reaching in, brought Twoit out and
plopped her on her lap. She sat stroking the sleeping creature’s
head, feeling slightly sick as her head began to pulse in painful
waves. Maybe they should have stayed an extra night. She felt
herself break out in a sweat as the tunnel walls around her seem to
spin nauseatingly. She was going to be sick.

“You alright?” Elenio asked as he took in
Galena’s appearance.

Galena just shook her head slightly, but even
that small gesture, sent another nasty wave of pain through her.
She was afraid to open her mouth for getting sick. She decided that
would not be the best idea seeing how they were a confined in a
tunnel at the moment.

Morgo looked up and taking in Galena’s
appearance as well, reached over to his pack, dug around for a
moment, and brought out a small satchel that was tied with a
drawstring. Opening the small bag, he took a pinch of whatever was
inside and put it in Galena’s flask of water before handing it to
her and saying, “We ran into Ni and she told us that we were to
give this to you throughout the day, or whenever you needed it. She
felt like she had done a good job with healing you, but you were
liable to have side effects from such a big thump. It’s herbs to
help with the pain and sickness.”

Galena took the water gratefully and drank
deeply. The herbs started working as soon as they hit her stomach.
Slowly, the pain started to recede, leaving her mind clear to
process what the others were talking about.

“The next village is about a day and a half
away, but if we take this tunnel,” Morgo said, pointing to the map
he carried, “we can go around it.”

“If possible, I would like to skip as many
villages as we can,” Elenio muttered, looking at Galena as he did.
She was playing with Twoit who decided to wake up and play for a
little bit before searching for her own meal. Galena looked up at
this and smiled at Elenio, who did not return the gesture, but
returned his gaze to the blazing fire.

“I think it would be a good idea too,” Tark
said, looking at the map as well, following the path Morgo was
marking out.

Morgo finished their meal and handed out
portions to everyone.

Galena dug greedily into hers, glad that the
wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm her was gone.

“Once we get back into the world above, I
think you shouldn’t use your magic,” Elenio said, putting his empty
plate beside his leg.

“Elenio, we have already been through this. I
need to practice. I know when I should stop now,” Galena said in a
slightly exasperated voice.

“It’s not that,” Elenio responded, anger
coloring his voice. “I just don’t think we should give our location
away to Rau.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too. Once we
get out of here, he will have no way of knowing where you are as
long as you don’t use magic. I think that’s how he was able to have
torlics attack us so often.” Tark scratched his chin thoughtfully
before continuing, “It would be nice to be above for a while before
battling torlics again. I don’t know about you, but they were
wearing me out. And now that you’ve tried to knock your own head
in, we should be even more careful.” He grinned at Galena, clearly
proud of his joke.

She ignored this and stared thoughtfully into
the fire as she absorbed what they had said. “What if we’re
attacked again?”

“Then I’d say go for it, because he’ll
already know where we are,” Tark replied.

Galena nodded. Tark was right. She looked at
Elenio who seemed to be feeling better now that she had agreed not
use magic for a while. She shook her head at him before leaning
back against the tunnel wall. Morgo cleaned the dishes and packed
them all away. Making sure that Twoit had returned from her night
hunt, he placed the protective magic around them for the night.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks,
the four traveled through endless tunnels, only running into
trouble a handful of times. Galena got an unwelcome chance to see a
group of xamus as well as a pourcos. The xamus were giant rats that
were roughly the size of sheep and traveled in packs. Morgo threw
several jires at them and caused them to explode in midair. The
xamus scrambled around in their confusion, but just managed to
collide into one another.

The pourco looked like a giant, scaled
scorpion with a long pointy tail that hung over its back. It had
ten legs on each side and thousands of black, glittery eyes. Its
black, scaly armor made it very difficult to see in the dark
tunnel, and they were almost upon it before Morgo noticed. Galena
found Morgo’s way of dealing with this creature interesting. He
distracted it with a small fire from the jire before placing
several more under the creature. While he was doing so, the pourco
gazed intently at the fire blazing from the small orb, seemingly
unable to look away. When Morgo had placed no less than twenty of
the fire orbs under the great creature’s giant belly, he caused an
explosion, backing away quickly as he did. Galena heard a hissing
noise before the entire creature caught up in flames. Instead of
moving and going crazy, the thing simply flopped down and
burned.

They had also run into a couple of torlos,
but Morgo dispatched of these monsters quickly, with a triumphant
expression on his face. He seemed to have taken his near fatal
attack personally, and was taking it out on any of the remaining
creatures. Galena had almost laughed at him when he started yelling
insults at the dying monsters, but even then, she couldn’t quite
bring herself to do so in the face of a dying being. It just didn’t
seem right to her.

They passed by all the villages, save for the
last one, which they decided to stop at for a hot bath and a
comfortable bed. They approached the village cautiously, with Morgo
leading the way, but found their caution was unnecessary. Once the
villagers saw that Morgo was with them and that he walked of his
own free will, they were left alone except for their stares, to
which Galena had grown accustomed.

Morgo found the inn, which was near the
center of the village, and got them three rooms. Galena looked
around the dining area while Morgo worked out their accommodations
for the night, noting that like every other place in the
underground world, this room too, was exceptionally bare and devoid
of color. Unlike the other inn they had stayed at, it only had a
few tables and no fireplace. Although, it did have several
paintings full of grays, blacks, and varying shades of brown on
them. They were paintings of different elves in different poses.
Galena assumed they must have been elves from the descendants Kora
and Arok, because their hair was lighter shades of brown than any
other elf she had seen down here.

After Morgo secured their accommodations,
they sat down in the large dining area for their evening meal where
they enjoyed each other’s company until late that night. They
talked of their first meeting, of their journey through the
tunnels, and several jokes were made concerning Galena’s
unfortunate encounter with a dungeon ceiling. They drank the sour
tasting wine that was given and had course after course of food,
until Galena felt quite sick. Her declaration of being so full made
Elenio laugh aloud.

“You should have seen the amount of food she
ate at the first inn that we stayed at. I ordered enough food for
both of us...” Elenio started, laughing so hard at this point that
it took a few moments before he could go on. “But by the time I had
cleaned up, she had finished the whole thing off...”

To Galena’s great embarrassment, both Morgo
and Tark broke into raucous laughter. Morgo had tears in his eyes
and Tark nearly fell out of his seat.

“Well, we’re keeping the innkeeper up, so I
think I’m going to head to bed,” Galena said in attempt to get them
to stop laughing. The other three looked around and noted that they
were indeed the final ones left in the room.

****

Calling good night to Morgo and Tark, Galena
pushed the large stone door closed behind her. She turned to take
in the room and noted that the only thing that it had in it was a
large stone bed with a thick mat on it. Several blankets covered
the mat on the bed, but there were only a couple of pillows. A door
stood opposite from the one that led to the hallway, which Galena
assumed led to the washroom. Elenio stuck his head in that room and
declared that she was correct. They called for the maid in turn,
and each bathed before getting into bed. Galena lay back on the
pillows, the comfort easing away the ache almost as much as Ni’s
herbs. Morgo had taken the time to show Galena how to make more
herbs and food when their supplies got low once they were on their
own. He laughed when Galena had told him that she would grow whole
trees from seeds when they had needed food before. She had never
considered just using the seed to make another piece of fruit.

The floating lights dimmed as Elenio joined
Galena in bed. He lay on his side watching Galena as she thought of
all the interesting ways that she would be able to use magic once
the time came. She looked over and saw that he was watching her
with the same sad look on his face as he wore the last time they
had stayed at an inn. Smiling at him, she cupped his face with her
hand. She stroked his smooth, perfect cheek with her thumb before
leaning over and kissing him gently. He clutched her hand tightly,
bringing her palm to his mouth and kissing it.

“This is our last chance. Are you sure I
can’t change your mind and convince you to stay safe with me here?”
he asked, his eyes searching her face.

“You would really leave your family to suffer
at the hand of Rau?” Galena asked searching his own face for the
reaction she was sure he would have. Just as she suspected his face
crumpled with the thought of his family. “You cannot leave your
family to face Rau any more than I. If we have a chance to free our
people, we should do everything that we can.” She continued to
stroke his face, loving the way that he felt under her
fingertips.

“I love you and I thought I would give it
just one more try before we left this strange world.” He pulled her
closer to him, kissing the top of her head. “Let’s finish this
then.”

The next morning they woke to the sound of
Tark banging on their door. Elenio stood, groaning as he did and
let him in. He plopped back down on the bed, flinging himself back
and placing a pillow over his face. Galena grinned, grabbing her
clothes; she went to change for their final trek through the
tunnels. Morgo had said they had less than a day’s journey before
they would reach the mouth of the tunnel that led to the base of
the mountain range. She came out and found Tark and Elenio having
an argument about the best way to climb a mountain. Galena found
this extremely amusing as neither had been anywhere near a mountain
their entire life. Shaking her head, she headed out to find Morgo
while Elenio changed and fought with Tark.

She found him in his room, sitting on the
edge of the bed, looking extremely glum. “What’s bothering
you?”

Startled, he looked up. “This is my last day
with the three of you. If I could, I would come with you, but I
don’t think I would be much help in the world above. I have very
rarely been there and am unfamiliar with its ways.” He gave an
attempt at a smile at these words, but just managed to look like he
had an upset stomach.

Galena walked over to him and put a hand on
his shoulder. “When this is all over, we will come back for you,
and teach how to live in our world.” She squeezed his shoulder
tightly and turned to leave.

“I will be waiting for that day, then,” he
whispered just loud enough for Galena to hear as she slipped out
the door.

They collected their things, paid for their
rooms, and then went to get supplies. Morgo insisted that they
needed things to take with them, including whole food. He pointed
out that they needed to take things that Galena would be able to
make more of, when the time came for her to use magic again. Galena
thought this sounded reasonable enough and she found herself
looking forward to trying some of the things that Morgo had taught
her.