Painting the Silence

See disclaimer in part one

Once the rumbling had stopped, Gulcasa opened his eyes and waited for them to adjust to the near-absolute darkness. It took a moment, but eventually he was able to make out the cave walls and ceiling and his and Nessiah's tightly curled bodies, prostrate on the hard stone. He glanced over his shoulder at the sealed entrance, noting that a few tiny rays of light were filtering from the crack beneath the trapped door wherever there was a gap between the boulders on the other side.

His thoughtless tackle-and-dive had not been gentle, but as Gulcasa eased himself up on his hands and knees, he noted that his battered leather armor had taken most of the damage—a few scuffs here and there, but he himself was unhurt. Nessiah was still lying next to him, as if expecting another cave-in.

"Hey…" Gulcasa laid a hand on Nessiah's shoulder a bit worriedly, giving him a gentle shake. "Are you alright? Looks like it's over now; it should be safe to sit up."

As Gulcasa stood and frowned at the door, Nessiah did, very slowly. As he hadn't been wearing protective gear, his hands and forearms were scraped raw and bloody, and his legs probably were too. Still, with that trap, he was lucky it wasn't anything worse.

Leaving his companion where he sat, Gulcasa walked over to the sealed entryway, slamming it with the side of his fist. "Damn, it won't budge at all… looks like this sliding panel thing is solid stone, too. HEY!" He raised his voice, and kicked the rock face. "Can anyone hear me out there?!"

He waited, but no answer came. With a disgusted sigh, Gulcasa turned around to squint down the long tunnel ahead.

"Well, this is just wonderful. There'd just better be another exit. It would be a pain in the ass to have to wait for everyone to dig us out." So saying, he removed his gauntlet, scowling at Nessiah all the while. "That was brilliant back there, by the way," he said sarcastically. "Really, I was under the impression that you were a little bit better at the whole magic thing than that. Setting off a trap like this… I guess I overestimated you."

"I'm telling you, this was not my fault," Nessiah said. His voice was strained and very small; he hadn't turned to face Gulcasa and was sitting in the same spot with his shoulders hunched. "I didn't do anything that possibly could've set off a trap like this."

"Somebody did, and that somebody wasn't me," Gulcasa reminded him. "In case you've forgotten, you're the only one here who can use magic. Honestly. We're stuck here until we find a way out or they get us out; there's no point in not owning up."

"I didn't do anything," Nessiah hissed.

"Whatever." Gulcasa licked his palm and held it up, waiting. "…There! I can feel a breeze coming from the other side. I knew there had to be another exit. Come on—I don't feel like waiting for the others to figure out what they're supposed to be doing." And so saying, he walked past Nessiah, heading for the other end of the cave.

At about the same time the lack of footsteps behind Gulcasa told him he wasn't being followed and he turned around, Nessiah called out. "Wait—you can't—don't just—"

There was a strange note of panic in Nessiah's voice, bordering on hysteria. Gulcasa looked at him for a moment, then walked back towards him. Maybe it was just that strange tone, or the fact that Nessiah hadn't yet moved, but he looked so shaken that Gulcasa had to start worrying.

"Are you really alright?" he asked frankly, kneeling down and looking his companion over. "Were you hurt? It's fine, it's safe to stand…"

"Gulcasa," Nessiah said in that same small, tight voice with that same slightly hysterical note, "there are dampening spells all over this place."

"So? They're not hurting us, they just suppress magic. Come on—we're wasting time. We have to get moving, or—"

"Don't you understand?" Nessiah demanded, and his voice cracked as he spoke the words. It was only then that Gulcasa realized there was a faint jangle of metal in the air and saw what it meant: Nessiah was shaking. "All magic is suppressed. All magic. I can't—Gulcasa, I can't…"

Abruptly, it dawned on him.

"Oh, shit," Gulcasa murmured. "No… you don't mean the magic you use to see…?"

"I can't—I don't—" Nessiah shook his head, trembling violently. "Everything's black and—it's just like back then—and… and I can't tell where you are and… and I can't feel anything and, and… I can't… I can't…"

In each pause in the terrified confession, Nessiah took a deep, shuddering breath, his voice got fainter, and his shaking got worse. Alarmed, Gulcasa reached out and put his hands on Nessiah's shoulders to steady him.

"Okay—okay, just—just try to calm down and breathe," Gulcasa told him. "If you keep hyperventilating you're going to faint. I'm right here. Nothing bad's going to happen to you. Once we get out of here, you'll be fine." Won't you? "Just take it easy."

Nessiah shivered and slumped forward, resting his forehead against Gulcasa's leather breastplate. "…I feel sick…"

Gulcasa sighed and patted his companion's shoulder. "That's what happens when you take in too much air. Just stay still for a minute. Try to stay calm. You won't feel so dizzy then." As he watched Nessiah fighting to get his breathing under control, curled tensely against the curve of his own body, he made a face and sighed again. "And… I'm sorry. I didn't realize… I shouldn't have gotten mad at you."

"…………" Nessiah hunched his shoulders, tucking his legs to his chest and loosely winding his hands into Gulcasa's chain mail. "…just shut up…"

It took Gulcasa a moment to realize why in the world Nessiah was clinging to him—from his experience, usually the mage disliked human contact and would even stay to the edge of crowds to avoid too much invasion into his personal space. But once he thought about it, it made a lot more sense.

The closest thing to blindness he himself had ever experienced was a session or two of blindfolded weapons training. As soon as the blindfold had been put over his face, the world had become a lot less solid, a lot more uncertain. He'd thought he'd known where things were, but there was no way for him to know for sure. There was a lot of disorientation involved in not being able to see, and a lot of fear. Right now, Nessiah was probably trying to reassure himself with closeness to the most solid and stable thing near him, which just so happened to be Gulcasa.

"Just relax," Gulcasa repeated, leaning in to speak the words softly. "I won't leave you on your own here."

Nessiah didn't respond. He'd raised his head and uncurled a little, although his grip on Gulcasa's mail was as tight as ever, and was taking long, measured breaths that shifted his chest dramatically. He was still shaking, and in the low light Gulcasa could just see the sweat on his face. Apparently, Nessiah was beating back the fear with everything he had, and it was a pitched battle.

Gulcasa sighed, and remembered something that Baldus had told him in training once. He hesitated for a moment, then put an arm around Nessiah's thin shoulders and leaned down, putting his lips almost to the blind mage's forehead. "Just listen," he whispered. "I want you to try this. I think it may help."

"Anything," Nessiah pleaded in a voice that was half croak and half groan.

"You're wasting your energy fighting this, and making it worse, like—like someone who can't swim thrashing around trying to stay above water. Just let the panic in for a minute or two. Before you can deal with it, set it aside, you have to feel it. Better now than later… it's just you and me here. No one'll think worse of you."

Nessiah didn't reply, but Gulcasa felt his hands tremble just slightly before his companion bowed his head and let out a thin sob.

Gulcasa wanted to say something, but he wasn't sure what he could say. How could you possibly comfort somebody going through something like this? The young Emperor did not know how Nessiah had lost his sight, but he'd seen the ugly, twisted scars that sealed the mage's eyes shut and knew that it had to have been traumatic for more than one reason. This helplessness he suffered now was so unexpected and so absolute that it had to remind him of that time, however.

Were there even words that could make something like that better? Gulcasa doubted it. So he just kept his mouth shut.

As he sat in the near-darkness with Nessiah clinging to him, his breathing sharp and jagged and punctuated with the kinds of sobs that twisted at your heart, he knew that there was next to nothing he could do to help. That wasn't a feeling Gulcasa liked, and what frustrated him even more was the sudden realization that a lot of it probably stemmed from his lack of knowledge about Nessiah's past. Although he'd been with the people of Flarewerk for an entire month now, he hadn't spoken about himself at all or even given any information about himself other than his name. It hit Gulcasa very hard right then that despite the time they'd spent together, he and Nessiah were still as good as perfect strangers.

Getting out of this place had seemed so simple only a few minutes ago—just a matter of walking to where this tunnel opened up on the other side of the mountain. How in the world had that task become something so impossible in so short a time?

Nessiah took a few shaky deep breaths and sat up a little, sighing. What Gulcasa could see of his face was covered in tearstains that looked alarmingly dark. Gently, he reached out and wiped the marks away, then squinted at his hand in the low light, his stomach tightening at what he saw. Blood. God… his eyes must be a lot worse than I ever imagined.

"What now?" Nessiah asked, his voice blunted by the tears he'd shed.

"Well, there are only two things we can do," Gulcasa replied. "One, we can wait to see if the others will get through there or find another entrance. It might take a long time, and if this was a trap set up, then they might even be fighting right now, which will make it take a lot longer. And I don't know how long you can stand this; you're in pretty bad shape, and even without the dampening spells everywhere, you need fresh air. It'll make you feel a lot better."

"And?" Nessiah prompted.

"We can go on ahead and find the other exit ourselves, then get back around to the others. Given my druthers, that's what I'd do. Sitting here for God knows how long and waiting for my sisters to figure out this door thing isn't a fun prospect, and I am dead sure that on the other end of this tunnel is open air. But that's going to ask a lot of you."

"…………" Nessiah just sat there, apparently turning it over in his mind.

"I do want to get you out of here as soon as humanly possible. But that means you're going to have to trust me, and that… might be asking a lot. Maybe too much. Just… know that those are the only things we can do."

"Trust… but…" Nessiah's voice had taken on that panicky note again.

Gulcasa closed his eyes and let out a very terse sigh, praying that his companion wasn't going to flip out again. "Please, Nessiah. There's only one path, and I'm not going to let go of you once in all that way. There's not much time we can waste. Please. Just try, alright?"

There was a very long silence.

Gulcasa was just about ready to tell Nessiah to forget it when one of the mage's small hands unclenched from his mail and drifted down his arm to his own hand, clutching it tightly and almost desperately.

"Don't…" he started to say, but fell silent, his throat no doubt aching from those bitter, half-stifled sobs.

"I won't let you down," Gulcasa replied, relieved. "Come on… let's go."

:TBC: