I was not oft asked to fight. Not to say I was asked as much that day. His words were "search the caves," but the gun he handed me spoke clear enough, and when we set off we looked just as we did on the days we marched to battle: armed, armored, carrying nothing we did not need, though I felt no less burdened for it.
"They must surely come out at times. If not for food or water, for strength to bear the darkness."
"It must let out elsewhere. As I've said. Yes, we've not seen it, but—"
"Nor have we seen a soul out here, save each other. No track nor sign."
"Then I suppose it's far from here. How many people we saw—it must be huge."
Fought, and killed, I thought. Take that not for pity, for some deserve death, and I knew none among us started these fights. Only the thought of dying, bleeding to death on cold stone, corpses rotting or frozen in the darkness forever.
He made no answer to that, and I was glad when Lowell spoke from behind. "Has anyone told you of this place?"
"Of course. Some have been talking of little else."
"Of the dark?"
"I was told that flames go out, as if in a wind, though the air is still."
Sarra looked back at me and added, "Yes. Pray take care not to shoot your allies."
"Fight on the front line, or just behind, don't try to flank, and call out if needed, though of course our foes will hear as well," said Mustadio.
"I had hoped that needed not be said," said Sarra, looking ahead again.
He ignored that. "Or whistle. After a time... it sounds mad, but the sound tells you things. Of the shape of the rock."
"Better you not shoot if you're uncertain."
"Forgive me, but why ask this of me? That I should come here at all? Is there none better suited?"
Lowell laughed. "'Tis an old wives' tale. They say... no, I oughtn't say that. It matters not. It's nonsense anyhow."
"I have reason to believe it," said Ramza, and I realized he had been quiet since we left camp. "We can well afford to bring anyone. You are no burden and you will not die. Only call out if anything happens, all right?"
"I will," I said. What more could I say after all they had done for me?
After that the only sound was our footsteps, and to still my thoughts I checked my satchel again and made certain all the needed medicines were there and in their proper places, but still I thought of cries echoing in great dark caves with none to hear them.
I tied the rope around my waist the way they showed me, not so tight as a belt but enough so that it wouldn't fall. I was last in line. Should something come up behind us—
I prayed that someone else would be last when we returned.
The tunnel started steep and narrow, and I thought it would go on that way. We went one at a time, slowly, with both hands on the right wall. In the last light I tried to see how they moved, but if I took my eyes from my feet I fell behind. As the darkness grew I turned until I was looking near backward, and once or twice put my hands on the higher rock behind us, but quickly the passage leveled and I turned to face the wall instead. By that time it seemed to me that there was no light.
"There is a light that will not go out," Sarra said softly. "Has anyone told you that?"
"Yes." I meant to speak softly too, but it echoed off the walls and sounded loud in the quiet. I felt that the tunnel had widened. I suppose it was the sound. "That's not the cause of the fighting, is it?"
"None will speak with us plainly, so who can say? Either they're all allies and have agreed to it, scores of them, defending this hole against us yet fain fighting alongside monsters... or they're all mad, and we'll soon be mad too."
She was silent for a moment, but instead of quiet the sounds of our walking filled my ears as though I were an owl, boots and gloves and scabbards on rock.
"Like as not, the ones who've been here before will go mad first. If we were to turn on you... there'd be little you could do."
If I held still, I might hide in the darkness until they left, and then what? Wander, and find a way out, or only bury myself deeper in the earth? Would I die of thirst or go mad myself? They must find water somewhere. I had the discomfiting thought of an underground river, flowing down and down in a tunnel through the rock, so that if one fell in there would be no way to surface.
A rock gave way when I put my weight on it, and I faltered. When I laid my hands on the cave wall again, the insides of my gloves were damp with sweat. The air was thick with the smell of it, and dusty earth, and leather and gun powder.
Surely I would hear it if there were water. Surely I would know if my companions, my friends, were like to leave me to die, or to kill me themselves! Yet none spoke against this idea. Were they only now thinking it?
Someone whistled softly, and I knew that the tunnel had become close. A few steps on, the path grew steeper, until we were climbing more than walking. I was slow to find footing, and I thought myself falling behind. Worse not to know, to imagine shapes in the darkness and sounds in the distance. Some terrible creature might well use this way, for to us it had been plain.
"Hold," said Ramza quietly, and I felt for lower footing anyway, but found something softer than rock. My heart quickened before I realized it was someone's boot. I put my foot back up, on rock I wished were flatter. "Do you hear them?"
I held my breath. I heard nothing. Did he ask because he'd heard something or because he'd not?
"Yes," someone else whispered. I let my breath go and shivered, though it was not cold and I was warm from moving.
"Should they attack, as they all have, you must search as we fight, not after. The light will draw more, and there are a great many more."
The light of the dead. I nodded and then realized that would do no good. "I understand."
"They'll have heard us ere we heard them. Come out here and we'll advance as one." His voice echoed in a wider space ahead.
Slowly I heard the people ahead of me move, and slowly I followed, facing the wall. The path leveled abruptly but the wall remained straight. Far behind me, below and to my left I heard a faint voice talking, words I couldn't make out, and then the twang of a bowstring and, closer, the arrow striking rock. The room must have extended a great distance. I took a hand from the wall and turned. I heard a gun fire, but saw no flash, and then shouting and chanting.
How ought I to begin? Would this treasure be buried, or a small thing on the ground, or in a hidden passage? I knelt and laid one hand on the cave floor and the other on the wall. It would be easy to take a gem for an ordinary rock here.
Suddenly I heard another voice, much closer. I near cried out, but it was only Sarra. "I worry for you, apart from us, not knowing the way nor the darkness."
Hearing her say it troubled me more. "I worry as well. For myself and for you."
"Worry not for us. You have no understanding of this place, nor this task."
That was true. Perhaps I would only disappoint them. "What must I do?"
"Come." Toward the fight, away from the wall, away from the way out. I felt like a child clinging to the bank of a river. Still I stood up and followed the sound of her voice as she went on. It was even and rhythmic, and as she spoke I felt I heard nothing else. "There are cracks in the ground, wide as a man and the gods only know how deep. An errant spell might burn the rope, an arrow call down rocks, upon you or the path... or merely strike you down ere you could call out. We'd not know until after."
Dread grew in my heart and spread like blood from a wound. Lying here bleeding. Lying here buried, buried alive, screaming, pleading and no one hearing, falling into the abyss in a sea of ancient rock. The closeness, the air—suddenly the air felt painfully thin and stale, and I gasped for breath. I felt a pressure in my spine and I could not be still, couldn't take one moment more in that godforsaken tomb. I ran for the passage and stumbled. Where was the wall? The sounds of the fight had become spread out, and closer, I realized with a shock.
Her tone abruptly lost its gravity, but its hypnotic cadence remained. "I mean only to warn you! This is what understanding is. I have every confidence—"
A call of "Sarra! Help!" interrupted her, and I heard her leave me.
We would all die here. At any moment some unseen attacker would strike me down and I'd never know. Or worse, they would kill the rest while I fought to be silent. I had to leave immediately. No, I had to help, but I couldn't bear it. I no longer knew where the wall or the tunnel were, only the gun fire and the desperate incantations, the swords striking swords or armor or shields and the screams and the smell of blood. Who was screaming I couldn't say, but it scarcely mattered to me.
I ran until my outstretched hands struck rock and felt along the wall frantically. Where was the passage? I pushed against the rock as though I thought it might give way. I kicked it. I fell to my knees. What more could I do? "Please! Let me leave! Let me be! Why did you bring me here?"
I laid my head in my hands. I was surely trapped in that awful place, I felt, never to see the light again. All I could do was start at every sound, awaiting an unseen death. It seemed then a mercy, yet I could not bear to confront it. Terror held me there, bearing down as though I were holding back a river. My gloves were wet with sweat and tears.
Suddenly a faint light glowed behind and below me, and my own heart seemed to freeze. It pained me to turn and look, but I did, for it pained me more not to.
The sickly light was worse than darkness, turning the high, uneven ceiling to a sea of shadows and the great spikes descending from it to the teeth of some incredible beast. I couldn't see the source, nor any ally or enemy, for the cave floor dropped off sharply ahead. Below I heard fighting still, and a flurry of movement, away from me for the moment. How long until they came for me? How many lay dying even now?
Another light joined the first, and made of the battle a shadow play, huge and distorted by the rough cavern wall, and with naught to see beyond its edge. The shadows ran together, and for a long moment the sounds did as well, but gradually it became clear to me that the voices were ones I knew.
I found myself catching my breath, shaking still, but breathing deeply. I put a hand on the wall to steady myself. My sweat was cold, and I took my hand from the wall and peeled off my gloves. I laid them in my lap, with care, though it was not so dark by then. I wrapped my arms around myself and sat, shaking, as the sounds of running and fighting slowed and then, with a last awful cry, stopped. The shadows became still and then shrank as the survivors came for me, and I heard Sarra calling my name. I took a deep breath and said nothing.
By the time I saw their silhouettes rise from beneath the overhang, I was standing, one hand on the wall and the other holding my gloves, and the cavern was well-lit.
I believe I remembered then the old wives' tale of which they spoke.
Author's note:
This is what happened my first time through the game: only at the end did I decide to try this item-finding thing, and I brought an underused character with some abilities to do the finding and made another character a mediator (orator) to lower her "brave" on the spot. I don't remember exactly what I meant to do after that, but I floored her brave, and then my unprepared party needed help and I had to leave her to run away for several rounds. I had been into the characters and story, and I both felt weirdly bad for her and couldn't stop laughing. Writing it out almost felt like an apology. I chose first-person so you can easily imagine whomever you used for this sort of thing. I chose this style because I like it and to emphasize the contrast between the story and parts of the gameplay in a different way from parody, which, although I like it and arguably have written it, is well-trodden ground in this fandom. Criticism and other comments are enthusiastically welcomed, no matter how belated. I think I originally made the story too hard to understand.