Chapter Six: Providence
Worry…it was all anyone was capable of mustering after the twentieth floor. Well did Tia remember the sign in the creepy exterior to the dungeon. "Providence available after twentieth floor," it had read. It had not, however, specified what you were supposed to do in case you couldn't find Providence. Nor did the sign mention a range of floors in which one had a chance of finding it. Lexis agreed with Tia; more than ever, a careful search was necessary to find Providence. However, the party's supplies were running low. Tia supposed they wouldn't starve, though she had no desire to taste the plants of this dungeon, nor did she fancy dining on the soft dirt that composed the floor.
The Ancient Cave had become considerably more difficult after they had left the tower for the dungeon, which epitomized the macabre and the dismal. In place of colorful tiles, soft dirt covered the floors. The shrubs and vines were so numerous that Tia was reminded of a messy garden with countless tangles of bones to mark the flowerbeds. The farther they descended, the stranger the plants became, the more ghastly gray, almost white in places, from starvation for the sun. At night a strange illumination rose from these macabre plots of earth, though whether it came from the bones, the plants, or something else altogether, they never learned.
The tower… Not an hour passed now when Tia did not think of it with longing. She spent at least twice the time in battle as she had before. These weren't the frequently easy fights of the floors above, but nerve-wracking ordeals she felt grateful to have survived. Even Dekar, self-proclaimed strongest man in the world, was starting to show the strain. His normal cheerfulness in battle had been replaced by an uncharacteristic look of concentration.
Despite all their caution, their desperate hunt for Providence had yielded nothing, and the strain was beginning to show… As Lexis put it, they were caught between a rock and a hard place. They could make haste and risk missing Providence all together, or they could comb the dungeons and lose supplies, strength, and hope.
One day – all the days blurred into one endless dreary march – Lexis sent Tia and Dekar to scour the floor one final time for Providence. He had drawn a map of every floor since their drastic change of scenery. But even maps couldn't get them Providence. Lexis claimed they had not even reached the thirtieth floor yet, but Tia knew he was lying. By her count, thirty had long since passed them.
"And here's this closet-sized room with nothing in it…what a waste of time," Dekar huffed.
"It's worth your life if we escape from this cave," Tia reminded him. "Providence is the only way."
"Maybe so," Dekar sighed. "But I'd rather fight something I can see than hunt for something that doesn't want to be found."
Tia agreed with him silently and licked her cracked lips. One of the chief problems of the Ancient Cave was the severe shortage of water. She, Dekar, and Lexis had water skins that Artea had provided them. Nonetheless, during the slow search, they had inevitably run dry. Tia sometimes stared at the damp dungeon walls for hours while Lexis pored over his maps, assuring himself that she and Dekar had gone over the floor thoroughly.
When Tia and Dekar returned to Lexis, he had packed away his maps. "Another floor down?" he said, already knowing the answer.
Tia and Dekar nodded.
Lexis sighed. "Okay, on to the next floor." Due to the sheer number of trips she and Dekar had made across the earthen passages, it took no time at all to find the stairs. Unlike the tower steps, which were as narrow as lighthouse stairs and as stable as a bomb in Berty and Bart's hands, the dungeon stairs were formed of wide blocks of cracked stone. Where the tower stairs had been perilously dark, the dungeon stairs had two-fold illumination: the sallow cast of bone and plant and the light of eerie blue torches, which, though they winked, never went out.
When he stood in the doorway of the stairs and the dungeon's next floor, Dekar froze.
"What is it?" Tia whispered. Spells sprang to her mind by reflex.
"Water," Dekar whispered, jubilant.
Tia smiled then for the first time in a week. "Where?"
"Coming out of that gargoyle's mouth," Lexis said.
The three almost ran to the fountain. On the way, Tia spotted a red chest. It could be Providence, she thought. Though it was not, her mood remained uplifted. What she had found was a lovely gem cut with a skill Tia had never seen before, even upon the crowns of kings.
"Is that Providence?" Lexis asked hopefully.
"No," Tia said. "But it sure is pretty. Look." She turned it so that the light twinkled like rainbow fire in every facet.
"Quite," Lexis agreed with his rather detached scientific approval. "It's a lovely prism. Could I examine it for a moment?"
"Well," Tia hesitated, reluctant to hand over her treasure. "I suppose…"
Lexis toyed with the jewel while Tia filled her water skin from the gargoyle fountain. She tasted the water and found it, to her dismay, brackish. Still, what did I expect in this dirty dungeon? It was hardly comforting to recall that in a few floors, this murky water with its floating crumbs of dirt and rotted leaves would seem quite tasty indeed. Tia drank her fill and lingered on, watching the water dribble from the gargoyle's mouth to the basin. Its yellow, squinty eyes seemed to follow her as she rejoined Dekar and Lexis.
"Dekar, it just occurred to me," Lexis was saying, "we haven't let our capsule monster out yet."
"You mean it didn't disappear with the rest of our equipment?" Tia queried.
"Nope." Lexis paused in setting up his cartography supplies. The scientist dug into the breast pocket of his lab coat and drew out a capsule half the size of Tia's thumb.
"If you're bored," he said with a meaningful look at Dekar, who usually was, "you can take it for a walk and a few battles…while-"
"You hunt for Providence," Dekar finished with a laugh. "Would you like to come too, Tia?"
"Sure," she agreed.
"Here," Lexis said, giving Dekar the capsule. "Oh, and Tia…your prism."
"Thanks, Lexis." She couldn't help but feel cheered at the sight of the dazzling jewel.
Tia and Dekar walked in silence for a few minutes until they happened upon some bees flitting near the ceiling.
"They may be poking around up there, but their nest is in the ground," Dekar said.
"Allow me," Tia said. "Spark!" she pointed two fingers at the mound Dekar had pointed out. Flame flashed at her fingertips and shot in an arc straight for the bees' nest.
"Whoa!" Dekar gasped, stepping back from the blaze. "Your magic's getting so powerful!"
"Thanks!" Tia beamed at the praise. "Quick! Release the capsule! Here they come!"
Dekar flung the capsule near the growing cloud of bees and drew his blade. Tia stood ready with a spell on her lips and her whip in her hand. From the capsule emerged a blue ball of hair. When Flash saw the bees, it squeaked piteously and ran to hide under Tia's skirts. Buzzing ferociously, the bees followed the capsule monster.
"Firebird!" Tia shouted. Dekar's eyes widened. The phoenix Tia had summoned burst forth from her palms with such a powerful impact that she fell to the floor. The drone of the bees drowned in the firebird's scream. Flame roared as the great bird beat its wings. Flash crept out to peer at the sight but quickly hid himself away again with a terrified yelp. The firebird wheeled once more; its scream resounded in the silence. The bees crumpled to the ground, ashes, every last one of them.
"Tia, are you okay?" Dekar knelt by her side and took her hand. "Tia? Talk to me, Tia!"
Tia groaned but did not stir. Flash prodded at her cheek with the butt end of his spear. Suddenly the little monster whirled. Dekar narrowed his eyes. There was no mistaking it – the sound of approaching footfalls.
"Dekar, what happened?" Lexis exclaimed. "Tia!" he gasped, rushing to her side. "I heard screams…familiar ones…"
"Tia called down a firebird," Dekar said.
"Impossible," Lexis said. "We have not found a firebird spell!"
"Oh," Dekar replied. "Well, I still know what I saw."
"Tia's not the type to keep back spell scrolls, either," Lexis said thoughtfully.
"Who cares about that?" Dekar retorted. "Aren't you worried about her at all?"
Lexis touched Tia's hand, his brow furrowed in concentration. This was the way of intimate communication – magic user to magic user. "She's fine," Lexis said at last.
Dekar heaved a sigh of relief, and Flash squeaked for joy.
"She's just exhausted," Lexis added. Then his hand brushed against Tia's prism. Even in her faint, her fingers were wrapped tightly around it.
"I think that this had something to do with the firebird," Lexis said. "It's only a hunch, though."
"Let's move her to the gargoyle room," Dekar suggested. "There aren't any monsters in there."
"Good idea," Lexis said. "In fact, you can watch over her. I'll explore the rest of this floor and make the map."
"Will you be strong enough?" Dekar asked the scientist.
"Lexis smiled. "I won't be called the strongest man in the world any time in this lifetime, but I can hold my own in a fight. Don't worry about me."
"Well, okay," Dekar said hesitantly. Once in the gargoyle room, Dekar remained by Tia's side for almost an hour. She remained as motionless as a porcelain figure. Dekar began to get worried. "Wake up, Tia! Please wake up!" he pleaded with her. He rubbed his hands over hers; her fingers were like icicles. "Please Tia," Dekar begged her, speaking sense and gibberish by turns. "Maxim will kill me if something happens to you!"
At Maxim's name, Tia's eyelids fluttered open. "Dekar…" she said slowly. "What happened? Did we win the battle?"
"Yeah," Dekar said shakily. "Lexis says you fainted because a spell you cast – firebird – exhausted you."
"Dekar, that's impossible!" An angry flush rose to Tia's cheeks. "How dare you lie to me? If I just wimped out in a battle, you should tell me! I can handle the truth after all!"
"That is the truth, Tia," Dekar said. "You've changed so much since we parted," he added, his eyes distant with memories.
"What do you mean by that?" Tia's eyes, though narrow with suspicion, still managed to convey her deep hurt.
"You've come so far in battle; you have twice the might that you did before," Dekar replied. Meeting the challenge in Tia's eyes made him physically and mentally weary, as if he faced a strong and cunning foe.
Tia's face fell. "Thank you, Dekar," she whispered. "That's probably the nicest thing a warrior has ever said to me." Her voice trembled.
"Tia, I have been meaning to ask you this for a long time," Dekar said. "In Parcelyte, you said that you and Maxim could never be, despite your love for him. Why are you on this journey to restore him? Why did you come to this terrible place for the sake of a man whom you do not love?"
Tia's lower lip trembled. "I…" She took a deep breath. "I said I would find someone as good as Maxim. But I think that before I find that person, I must find myself. I'm no fighter…you know that, Dekar. Inside of me ever since I've returned home, I've felt this emptiness. I'm searching for something, Dekar, though I'm not really certain what." Tia paused and sighed. "I had hoped to find the answer by going on this adventure…and by seeing Maxim again. If it hadn't been for him, this hole inside of me would never have opened."
Dekar's eyes shone with purpose and a strange intuitive wisdom. "I do not pretend to understand all of what you are saying," he said, looking at his calloused hands. "I know the sword and its ways. I know that the heart that fuels its movements – to protect and to kill – is simple. What brings me happiness, I pursue, always. What brings me sadness, I change."
"Dekar," Tia whispered, awed at his unexpected wisdom. "That's twice you've said something almost profound. I think that I understand what you're saying. Perhaps I came on this journey to find my own…happiness?"
Before Dekar could reply, Lexis returned at a run. His glasses hung askew on his face, and his eyes were wild. His panting attested to his haste.
"Lexis?" Dekar said, standing and drawing his sword. "What's chasing you?"
Lexis managed to shake his head.
"So nothing's chasing you?" Tia asked. "Are you okay then?"
"Never better," Lexis puffed. "I'm even better now that you're back with us," he said to Tia. A smile kept trying to work its way onto his face.
"What about your map?" Dekar asked him. "Were the monsters too strong for you to fight alone?"
"Finished it. It's a small floor, this one is. No point in wasting any more time on it."
"But Lexis," Tia protested. She wondered briefly if one of the monsters Lexis had fought had managed to confuse him.
"But nothing," Lexis interrupted in a tone that left no room for argument. "There is no need to worry or linger here any longer!" He reached into the breast pocket of his lab coat and withdrew an orb the size of a small ball. Pearly fog crept around their glass prison, which emitted a cold light. "I have at last found Providence!" the scientist declared triumphantly.
Excerpt from Lexis Shaia's log
Today marks the rebirth of hope, for I have at last found Providence, the relic that will free us from this cave. Now that we are not hunting the accursed thing, the party was able to reach the fiftieth floor in only an afternoon; we do not dare to travel at night. It appears that we may make it to the bottom of the cave intact after all. With nearly doubled progress, everyone's spirits have lifted considerably.
Tia has found a peculiar prism. I have reason to believe that it enhances magical power. The reason is this: though we have not the spell scroll, Tia was able to summon the firebird, a powerful spell indeed. Though her aptitude originally exceeded the average, I doubt she would be capable of such a feat...normally. Now with her prism, it would seem that many powerful spells will be available to her. I wonder just how great the power of that single prism is. Does it enhance magical power based on the aptitude of the individual? Are there any such jewels in the world outside of the cave? Would it teach the arcane to a warrior like Dekar? I could make an interesting study of the prism… However, Tia is very attached to it; even if it leaves her possession for a couple of minutes, she becomes ill at ease. Besides, I have a greater mystery on my hands than a mere gem. This cave is simultaneously baffling, fascinating, and nightmarish. One who dares to probe its depths risks drowning. Our near-failure to find Providence is just one proof of that. My maps of the cave are thorough and detailed, not that they will avail much good, considering that the cave changes its shape with the dawn. Nonetheless, if ever I do conduct a formal study of the cave, they will be good examples of the evolving shapes of the caves and may provide a clue to the pattern, if one even exists.
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Hello, everyone. I'm back from my extensive, well-deserved vacation. Sigh… Though I was very busy in Hawaii, I found some time to work on this fic almost every day. Of course, I still have to type it into the computer and fix my many errors. That is to say that updates might be longer in coming for the next few chapters. As you will see, chapters that I wrote on vacation tend toward the long side, so that too, is a factor that contributes to the delay. Please forgive me.
BTW, Mr. Hey. You have enviable luck to get through the Ancient Cave so fast. I have been in the cave for a few years now since my dumb cartridge seemed to take gleeful pleasure in erasing all my progress. Now that I have zsnes, I have made better progress than I have in years. I've even been to the bottom twice just for the hell of it (I never could do it with the cartridge…damn mimics…stupid erase-happy game!)