Back to the Source - Part VI

In the cave

By Katarzyna PopielPublished about a year ago • Updated 12 months ago • 10 min read

Back to the Source - Part VI

Photo by Shikhar Bhatnagar on Unsplash

This is part 6 of a longer story. If you would like to see what has already happened, here is part one:

https://shopping-feedback.today/fiction/back-to-the-source%3C/em%3E%3C/a%3E%3Cem class="css-ak7tmt-Italic">

https://shopping-feedback.today/fiction/back-to-the-source-part-ii%3C/em%3E%3C/a%3E%3Cem class="css-ak7tmt-Italic">

https://shopping-feedback.today/fiction/back-to-the-source-part-iii%3C/em%3E%3C/a%3E%3Cem class="css-ak7tmt-Italic">

https://shopping-feedback.today/stories/back-to-the-source-part-iv%3C/em%3E%3C/a%3E%3Cem class="css-ak7tmt-Italic">

and part five:

https://shopping-feedback.today/fiction/back-to-the-source-part-v%3C/em%3E%3C/a%3E%3Cem class="css-ak7tmt-Italic">

‘Tell me everything.’

So Darien told him. Zaric listened, his brow more and more furrowed. Finally, he said:

‘So it was your mount that killed him, not you!’

‘I was touching the gryplion’s mind to keep it calm. The guard surprised me and I thought that he shouldn’t have been there. Do you understand?’

‘The animal acted on your thoughts? I didn’t know magic could work like that.’

‘It makes two of us.’

Zaric shook his head thoughtfully.

‘I still can’t understand how all this could happen just because you did the meditation Quentin taught us. I know that it used to be part of the ritual to put ancient warriors into a battle trance and make them invincible, but we practiced it so many times. Okay, it does make you more focused. You can see and hear more. But this was something else.’

‘I could see every speckle of dust in the air. I could hear people walking the corridors. There was a guard in a hidden passage behind my bed, and I could hear his breathing. I knew that he would fall asleep, and that I had to be ready for that moment. How could I have known?’

Zaric had no answer.

‘And I was perfectly calm all the time like it was nothing. Just another task. No emotions, just pure, cold efficiency. I felt invincible. It was like being carried to where I had to be. Everything I needed to know was suddenly there, obvious as never before.

I suppose all the shock and desperation must have made a difference. They killed Grog. It felt like… I don’t know. Something inside me snapped. I understood that to my father everyone was like Grog. Expendable. An object that is either useful or in the way.’

He frowned at the memories.

‘I realised that the King had never intended to just exile you. He said so because it made things easier. I was supposed to feel chastised, abandon all resistance and do what I was told to avoid making things worse. But, in fact, you weren’t supposed to make it out of the country alive.’

‘How can you be so sure? I know that the King can be harsh, but…’

‘Harsh?’ Darien’s tone was bitter. ‘He cares about no one but himself.’

He looked at Zaric with an intense expression.

‘I know we never talk about it but we are brothers, you know this as well as I do.’

Zaric started to get up. Darien grabbed his arm, forcing him to stay.

‘Has the King been a good father to you? Did he cherish you, take care of you…’

‘Stop it! You know my mother was just a servant…’ Zaric turned away from him.

‘So what, Zazz? My mother was his wife and yours her maid. But she was not of lowly blood. Her hair was as copper as yours and mine.’

Zaric didn’t respond. Darien continued to talk to his back:

‘Fayla told me all about it. Your mother was relegated to the kitchens because she had the audacity to get pregnant and make things complicated. For ten years she did what she could to keep you alive. At least you had your mother for ten years…,’ he added bitterly. ‘I wanted to protect you too. But you’ve always been a speck irritating the King’s eye. A potential new pretender to the throne...’

Zaric turned abruptly and faced the prince. His eyes were ablaze with anger.

‘You know I would never do that!’

Darien shook his head.

‘All I’m saying is that the King has always seen you as a potential danger. Tell me one thing,’ he looked at his friend with sadness. ‘You’ve been told you had time until next sunset to leave the kingdom. Why are you here and not in your lodgings, packing your things and preparing for the journey?’

The silence was ringing in their ears.

‘They threw you out of the fortress immediately, didn’t they? Without any provisions, means of transport... Am I right?’

Zaric stood up. He shifted from foot to foot, opened his mouth as if about to say something, then turned and left the cave.

Darien was chewing on a haqva bar when Zaric returned. The boy sat down next to the prince and put several red berries on the blanket.

‘They grow nearby but not many berries are left. Rats got the rest.’

They sat in silence for a while. Then Zaric cleared his throat and said:

‘You know I’m glad you’re here… with me. You could have been on your way to your fiancée instead.’

Darien stopped eating.

‘I’ll never marry a Perrean princess.’

‘Well, you don’t know her, she might be nice…’

Darien snorted.

‘Nice? She might be, but this is not why the King wants me to marry her.’ He shook his head. ‘Perreans are even sneakier than our courtiers. Spending the winter with them would be like dancing on a carpet of scorpions. You want to know what the real problem is?’

Not waiting for an answer, he pointed to the saddlebags.

‘I had a look through these. It seems they belonged to a geologist.’

He stood up and approached the tools Zaric unpacked earlier.

‘Look at this: a drill and a chisel they use to break rocks. A hammer, hooks for rock climbing… And this,’ he raised a piece of glass on a string, ‘is a lens. The man I met in the stables must have been one of the royal surveyors. I haven’t found any samples, but maybe he took them with him.’

There were many royal surveyors in Raqdalijal, the land of sand and rocks. They travelled the land continuously, examining the capacities of existing mines and looking for promising new sites. Ministers based in the Fortress required regular reports.

The prince turned to Zaric with a grim face.

‘Tell me, what are the greatest treasures of Raqdalijal?’

Zaric shrugged.

‘Well… the gems, of course.’

‘Gems and hot springs, let’s not forget about those. Without them, people wouldn’t have survived in this desert country and the Fortress would have crumbled to dust long before my ancestors claimed it for themselves five hundred years ago. Hot springs are the reason why so many settlements exist on the other side of the Laar. So, hot springs and gem mines. It’s hardly possible to pick a stone in the desert and not find a diamond underneath. Have a look over there.’

Darien walked towards the passage branching out of their cave and beckoned for Zaric to follow. They have squeezed into the darkness of the narrow fissure. The passage took a bend, then became wider almost immediately. The rock under the boys’ feet suddenly reverberated with a different, more hollow sound. Darien conjured a bead of blueish light on top of his raised finger and Zaric gasped.

All around them, everything sparkled. It was like being surrounded by the sky full of stars or a sea filled with luminescent plankton. Zaric experienced a moment of dizziness before he realised that they were standing inside an amethyst geode. Every move of the light in Darien’s hand produced new waves of soft reflections on the rock.

‘Wow, it’s huge!’ whispered Zaric, his voice echoing around the cave.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it? Geodes that large are pretty rare. Royal geologists would be on it like a pack of sniffing hounds if they knew about it. Who knows, maybe it’s just one of many inside this outcrop.’

He turned and something crunched under his foot. Zaric bent down and picked a cluster of several purple stones embedded in a lump of dark grey stone. The light danced on their pointed surfaces.

When they returned to the main cave, Darien asked:

Do you have any idea how much we mine every year?’

‘A lot, I suppose?’

‘We have twelve fully functional mines where miners work day and night. Five sites under construction, two of them scheduled to open next year. Rubies will be extracted in both of them. You could say it’s a lot. And where is all that wealth? Can you see it around us?’

Zaric just stared with a confused frown, absentmindedly playing with the amethyst cluster in his hand.

‘I’ve never thought about it like that…’

‘I’ll tell you where it is. It gets shipped to Perrea in exchange for fancy food and drinks, elegant furniture, entertainment… Perreans fund the lavish lifestyle of the royal court and charge as much as they can get away with for everything they offer.’

Darien leaned towards his friend with a fiery look in his eyes.

‘My ancestors have ruled this land for five hundred years. And yet, people still call us invaders and fear copper hair. They keep repeating old legends about prosperity and magic that drained from the land when the good queen vanished, comforting themselves with the belief that it was the only reason why the invaders were able to take over. Is it even surprising? We've been treating this country like a bounty to be claimed and used at will. What have we done for those who live here? It is still illegal for anyone but the King and his family to own gems. Commoners caught with the smallest gem on them are punished by death. But ships loaded with diamonds and rubies depart for Perrea several times a year.

'Centuries have passed and we still consider those islanders our kin more than those who have always lived on this land. My father is no different. He sits so deep in Perrea’s pockets that he can’t see what power this country could have if only we started spending all that wealth to grow rather than to deplete. What does he care? It’s easier to be Perrea’s pawn. He only strayed out of line once: when he married a local princess in hope that it would make him more palatable to the locals. Now, the Perreans want to make sure that I won’t make the same “mistake”. They have their ways… After a few months in their court I would probably agree to anything they wanted.’

‘These maps here,’ Darien picked a stack of papers lying next to the geological tools, ‘show the locations of two promising sites. Two mines the King will not build, unless the geologist can reproduce all the details from memory. I suppose this is my last act of defiance before leaving... I haven’t looked at the notebook yet.’

The boys sat in silence for some time, both immersed in their thoughts. Zaric was the first to speak:

‘So what are we going to do? Your absence must have been discovered by now. The King won’t let you leave just like that. I’m sure he will send people after us.’

‘He probably has already. We must be careful, but we have a time advantage and they don’t know where we might be going.’

‘Do we know? You said south, I’m not sure why…’

‘Yes. The ocean is to the north and going there would be walking straight into the draak’s den. The east is too densely populated, making it easy to be spotted, especially for someone like us. I hope the King will believe we're heading west, hoping to disappear among the rebellious tribes. Many of them consider themselves independent and not answerable to the crown. It would be risky, but they might accept exiles. Or the King may think that this is what we hope for…’

‘You mean we won’t do that?’

‘No. We will go south.’

‘Why? There’s nothing there.’

‘Exactly. We are least likely to be noticed or followed. Four of five days should be enough to leave the desert behind and enter the steppes. It should be easier to hunt and find water there. With luck, we will leave unbothered… And then, we’ll see. There must be cities and villages beyond Raqdalijal. We will find somewhere to settle, earn a living...’

Zaric shook his head doubtfully. He took one last look at the amethyst cluster before he put it in his pocket.

‘You know how many holes this plan has?’

They both chuckled but without mirth.

‘Maybe we will be like some of those adventurers who went south to look for the mouth of the Laar?,’ said Zaric. ‘Brave explorers, the first ones to find the queen who vanished centuries ago!’

Darien grinned.

‘Even queens don’t live that long. She’s turned to dust long ago if she ever existed!’

‘Maybe there is a young and beautiful great-granddaughter?’ Zaric raised an eyebrow. ‘Or even better, two of them!’

‘Those granddaughters would need a few more greats to be still young… But I hope you get whatever you wish for, my friend.’

‘Hey, don’t make me look selfish! I want you to have a share in the fun too!’

It felt good to laugh after all that had happened. It felt good to be facing the uncertain future together.

‘The sun will be setting soon,’ said Darien finally. ‘We should get ready. Crossing the open sands during the day would be too risky, so let’s be quick. As soon as it’s dark, we will be on our way.’

They both jumped when a new voice sounded from the entrance:

‘I wouldn’t do that. There’s a sandstorm coming.’

On to part 7:

https://shopping-feedback.today/fiction/back-to-the-source-part-vii%3C/em%3E%3C/a%3E%3Cem class="css-ak7tmt-Italic">

About the Creator

Katarzyna Popiel

A translator, a writer. Two languages to reconcile, two countries called home.

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Comments (2)

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John Coxabout a year ago
This is truly engaging story with legs that could easily stretch into a novel! Looking forward to more!
Paul Stewartabout a year ago
Bac k to say, clearly I am effing behind ffs lol. Sorry. I shall make a point of getting to the point I left off and catch up with this story. Good job keeping it up! Sorry for the weird comment lol.

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