Chapter Three:  Separation

                Dawn upon Gruberick shone dull silver, the hue of a blade long unused.  Warm wind whipped across the streets like the breath of a panting beast.  By afternoon the ocean roiled, and every bird on the docks shouted tidings of the coming storm.

                "How fitting that it would be such nasty weather today," Guy remarked as they left the inn.  "Seeing as we'll be spending about a week indoors.  Do to us what you will!" he challenged the sky.

                "Guy," Artea groaned.  "People are staring."

                Guy looked around sheepishly.  "Oops.  Sorry."  He hunched into his armor.  Some of the 'stares' he was receiving were deteriorating into glares.  The party continued onward to the outskirts of town.  No one said very much.  The night before, most of the practical prospects of the adventure had eluded them.  Now, however, everyone had to make peace with the fact that they would not feel sun or wind on their faces for quite some time. 

Just on the outskirts of town, Lexis approached Artea.  "Artea," he said.  "Have you given any thought as to how you will divide the party?"

Artea started as if from deep, moody reflection.  "No, actually."

"Care for some advice?"

The elf laughed – it sounded forced – and nodded.  "Sure thing."

"You should travel with Guy.  Swords and sorcery together can cope with pretty much anything."  The elf and the scientist had fallen behind the other party members.  Dekar and Guy were carrying on at the front of the line, while Tia remained in the very back, her head bowed.

"Good idea," Artea said.  "So that would leave you with Dekar and Tia."

"So I'm the spare part…" Tia muttered just so Artea could hear her. 

"Thanks, Lexis," Artea said.  "You should wait until dawn to enter the cave.  That's when its shape changes."

Lexis nodded in agreement.  "Entering the same cave would defeat the purpose of separating parties.  Still…"  He looked to the overhanging storm clouds and said nothing more.

"Not really of any use to anyone…  I'm just an extra limb on something that's already complete.  In a word, overkill…"  Tia sighed.

Busy thinking, the elf frowned and soon fell behind even Tia.  He did not know much about the young woman other than her name and where she lived after consulting with Guy.  It amounted to just enough knowledge to send her a summons by carrier pigeon.  Nonetheless, her melancholy worried him.  Had she come without wanting to?  Hers was a delicate beauty, rather than that unmistakable strength that characterized warrior women like Selan.  Curious now, the elf caught up to her.

"How did you know Maxim, Tia?" the elf asked.  "I never did get a chance to ask you…I feel as if we are strangers."

Tia bit her lip.  "He was my childhood friend.  I was in love with him."  She held her head high though speaking the words obviously pained her.  "When the ball of light appeared, he left Elcid for good.  I didn't want him to leave me, however.  So…I followed him."

Artea flushed ever so slightly.  He had not meant to pry, after all.

"I found that his world – made up of the battles he fought - was no more a part of me than the elven one.  In fact, it frightened me, probably more than anything ever has!  But I continued to lie to myself.  'He'll want to go home soon,' I always said.  Then he met Selan…" 

Her words would move a stone to tears, Artea reflected.  Yet no tears shone on her cheeks.  It was then that the elf realized that Tia's strength was internal, intangible, perhaps, but as real as Selan's power.  "And you left then?"

"Yes."

"Why then did you come with us?" Artea was about to ask.  However they had already reached the site of the Ancient Cave.  Guy, Dekar, and Lexis had paused before the entrance.

"We stand together on the threshold," Artea said to them all.  "May we meet again at the bottom."  With those words of parting, the elf entered the shade of the cave.  Guy punched Dekar on the shoulder and followed the elf.

"Let's head back to town," Lexis said.  "Artea told me last night that the cave changes shapes with the dawn."

"Ugh!" Dekar groaned.  "That means we'll surely get caught in that storm Guy called down!"

"You know, that simply isn't scientifically possible," Lexis said.  "What superstitious nonsense."

"Power like the Sinistrels isn't quite explained by science either, is it?" Dekar challenged him.

"Actually I'm writing a book about that…" Lexis trailed off.  "Would you like me to show you my notes?"  He reached into his travel bag and withdrew an enormous tome

Tia turned from Dekar and Lexis, feeling almost compelled as if by enchantment to look at the cave.  No grass grew around its opening, giving it the appearance of a freshly-hollowed out tomb.  Strings of darkness crept out of the cave, filling the storm-sweetened air with the moldering odor of decay.  Silver lightning flashed at sea.  The wind swirled about them.  Tia felt hatred and fear for the cave well inside of her.  Above her the clouds burst.  Torrents of rain lashed Lexis, Dekar, and Tia.

"My notes!" Lexis gasped.  He slammed the tome shut and shoved it into his bag.  Hunched over, the scientist made for the entry of the cave.  "Come on!" he called to Tia and Dekar.  "We shouldn't try to find our way back to Gruberick in this!"

Dekar followed.  Then, noticing that Tia had remained behind in the shrieking wind, he turned.  "Into the cave!" Dekar yelled.  He grabbed Tia's wrist.  She did not resist his pull.  Nonetheless, a strange light shone in her eyes, a gleam that hinted if she could have, she would have.

Smoke that stung their eyes filled the inside the cave.  Torches flickered in each corner.  Nonetheless, the illumination they provided only made the shadows more glossy and vibrant.  Like a bier, a great counter rose in the center of the cave floor; the old man who stood behind it could have been the shriveled corpse from atop it.

"Welcome, honored guests," he rasped in a voice as dry as sand.  "Will you be entering?"

"Not today," Lexis said.  "The storm drove us to seek shelter here.  Tomorrow we will venture inside."

The old man laughed for so long at this seemingly trivial fact that Tia began to wonder if he was quite mad.  At length, he composed himself and favored the travelers with a skull-like grin.  "Suit yourselves.  You'll be mighty bored, though."

"Quite right," Dekar acknowledged unhappily.  He surveyed the dim earthen room with a sigh.  After a few minutes he struck up a conversation with one of the guards before the entryway to the cave.  Lexis, meanwhile, began inspecting the water damage to his precious notes.

Tia shuddered.  None but she seemed to notice just how creepy the cave was.  Try as she might, she could not keep from noticing it and dwelling on it.  Worst of all was the odor of decay, like wilted flowers, that crushed the lungs and burned the back of the throat. 

While the old man busied himself with some new customers, Tia noticed a small wooden sign atop the bier.  She came closer to inspect it.  "Enter at your own risk," the crudely carved letters read.  "Please note that upon entering the cave, all weapons, spells, experience, armor, and items you may be carrying will vanish.  I return no gold, no matter how terrible your experience.  I don't know how many rooms there are, and frankly, I don't care.  I have nothing to do with the monsters inside.  Treasures you find inside of blue chests, you may keep with you even after you leave.  Upon entering again, these treasures will stay with you.  Providence available after the twentieth floor.  I do not make missions into the cave to recover missing persons.  Remove all corpses.  Thank you and have a lovely time. ~Management."

For the remainder of the evening, Tia kept close to Lexis and Dekar.  Night added its own darkness to the stinking cave.  Dekar and Lexis soon nodded off.  Unable to sleep, Tia watched the double doors that led out of the inner cave.  They remained shut.  The old man noticed her fascination with that door and said, "No monsters'll come out of there, miss.  Not unless they're smart enough to find Providence themselves."

"Do any travelers ever come out of this cave?" Tia asked.

"Seldom, miss.  Very seldom."  The old man seemed almost gleeful at the prospect.  "Can you smell-" he took a great whiff of the musty cave air, "it, miss?  That's the stink of all the corpses that are rotting below."   

Tia did not sleep at all after that.