Chapter 1: Unpleasant Beginnings

Faerel licked the honey off her chin. She resisted the queasy feeling from her stomach, protesting the addition of further sweetness to her system. She was already covered, head to toe, in honey and some kind of sugar. It would not do to be covered in vomit as well. After swirling the sickening mixture around in her mouth, she did her best to spit it into the murky water below. The filth landed on her upper arm instead, disturbing a few of the biting insects that had already begun to crowd around her.

She tried to blink more insects away from her eyes, but her eyelashes were sticky with honey too, and she couldn’t move them fast enough to deter the flies from landing around her face.

Thus far, the only insects were small. Most in this situation would take that as a mercy, but Faerel was itching for larger bugs.

King in the Deep, if you could send something fierce, I would really appreciate it.

Aigean rarely answered her prayers these days, but that didn’t trouble her. He never really answered hers before, either.

* * * * * * * *

Elder Aeron watched the storm build. Far below his vantage point in Ard-Abthen, the waves crashed against the rock. He sent a quick prayer that the King in the Deep would calm the storm and strengthen the Wall. He was joined, no doubt, by countless other priests and priestesses around the island.

As the light faded against the ocean horizon, he turned and watched the novitiates run across the plains, finishing up their evening chores. For some, this would be the most daylight they had ever experienced, especially those who grew up in the mining cities. Nestled deep and low in the mountains, near the Autumn Rush, cities like Invercard experienced a scant amount of daylight compared to the plateau they now worked and lived on.

It was a small blessing from the King in the Deep, to give the novitiates the gift of prolonged daylight, yet the beauty of the ocean sunset was eclipsed by the ocean itself. The vast majority of children had only seen water in the River Rush, which meandered and danced from the Wall, through the farmlands, and then down through the mountains to the Drain. The only place to see the ocean besides Ard-Abthen was the Wall, and only children whose parents were servants of the Lady of the Soil or the Cascade Prince would have been there on pilgrimages—unless they had the good fortune to have grown up in the Twin City of Caeledonia, where the Wall resided.

Such sights now would be something they treasured in every point in their lives. They would treasure it immediately after they finished their apprenticeship, thinking of the sun when they ministered to the prisoners in the Drain as a trial period. They would treasure it long after that, as they counseled the farms and families that would eventually be their charge. And they would treasure it still, when they returned to Ard-Abthen in their old age, to teach the next generation of priests and priestesses, praying and guiding till the end of their days.

A scream echoed off the caves of the Cliffcomb. Aeron shuffled over towards the source of the noise, and when he could no longer pinpoint it he headed towards the growing group of novitiates. He roared to clear a path, and they did so.

A young woman knelt in the center of the group, cradling a young man in her arms, which were slick with blood. A knife lay on the ground between them.

“Willow, run and get a healer!” Aeron yelled, pointing at a small girl who stood, stone-still, watching the pair. She jumped and ran off towards the main network of the Cliffcomb caverns.

“Elder, we already sent some boys to get a healer,” one of the onlookers said.

Aeron ignored them, and knelt next to the girl, who was quietly whispering to herself over and over.

“Faerel?” he said.

“I tried to save him,” she repeated. “I tried to save him.”

* * * * * * * *

Faerel twisted her wrists against the rope. She had hoped the sugary substance the villagers of Ingerwald had liberally applied to her body would make it easy for her to slide her wrists from their bondage and give her some freedom of movement, but her enemies were better at knots than that.

The trees swam in her vision. She had never seem so many trees in her life; there were certainly no spots like this in the Island Beneath proper. Trees were a rarity, and it was a rich man indeed who owned or was able to work with wood. The trees danced in red colors above her, tall, proud, and unbent.

She had named the village for the trees: Ingerwald, the Fiery Forest. The villagers probably had some other name for it, she wasn't feeling particularly respectful towards the villagers at the moment.

She felt a stinging pain near her feet. She craned her neck up enough to see that they were slowly getting covered in large red ants. She tried to flick some off by flexing her toes, but the ants bit into her and resisted her movements. She thrashed involuntarily, but the ropes that bound her tightly to the canoe were unyielding.

Pain is part of the game, Faerel. Pain is part of the game.

Small mites were landing around her face, and while they didn’t bite, they were getting into her mouth and nose, following, she supposed, her sugary breath caused by the sickening substance she had ingested against her will. She shut her mouth, and exhaled hard through her nose. A cloud of mites rose into the air in front of her, and settled back on her face, crawling on her eyes. She resisted the urge to shut them completely, even as they dragged their honeyed limbs across. Faerel needed her eyes if she was going to get out of this.

King in the Deep, if you let me become blind, that’s really going to screw a lot of things up. Just help me survive a little longer, and I’ll promise to stop bothering you for a bit.

Faerel tried not to worry too much. Aigean was probably busy— the gods often were—and it wasn’t as if Faerel was his most important follower.

Just, Faerel thought, his most ambitious.

* * * * * * * *

The healer had arrived and taken the deceased away, but not before he had begged for a quick word with Aeron, and explained the blood and skin he had found beneath the boy’s fingernails. Aeron had brought the gaggle of novitiates to some of the inner chambers of the Cliffcomb so that they could organize prayers for the boy before the Solemn Vigil. He had left one of the girls with Faerel, and sent one of the gentler priestesses out to Faerel the instant he was inside.

“Novitiates,” he began. He swallowed, hard, and began again.

“Novitiates,” he said. “The moon is waning fast, and by overmorrow or so it should be new. We will organize and offer prayers that Julian’s spirit rests quietly until then, when the gods are assembled to judge.”

One of the younger children raised their hand.

“Elder Graham said that people who kill themselves are judged harshly by Aigean and the assembly.”

“We don’t know what happened,” said Aeron, but the healer’s observations and Faerel’s whispered words had more or less confirmed his suspicions, “and we pray that the King in the Deep gives Julian the benefit of the doubt. As do we.” He emphasized.

There were more interjections. “Julian just got back from ministering at the Drain, and look what happened. I don’t want to go anymore!” A clamor of agreement rose up, and Aeron raised a weathered hand to quiet it.

“Children, let me assure you that no one wants to minister to the poor souls at Loch Inferior. But, ah, life isn’t always about what we want, is it? It is not. It is not, and you all should know better than to complain about such things.”

“Going there is useless.” One of the older girls started to cry.

Aeron talked over her right away. “Novice Leah, such things are better saved for personal direction, and not bawled over in a public gathering. Now, I am sending you all to bed. You all need to sleep, and I will say your evening prayers on your behalf. Anyone who desires to stay is, ah, more than welcome, provided there is no complaining and there is only an understandable, ah, that is to say, a measured amount of weeping.”

Most of the children rose and departed for their individual cells, but a few remained. He picked the eldest one.

“Novice Aria, would you please begin to lead the remainder in prayers for the dead? I will pray with you, but I also need to consult with Elder Amelia the minute she gets back.”

* * * * * * * *

Faerel let the ants bite and dig into her arm. The arriving insects were beginning to grow larger. Wasps and bees began to crawl into the warmer places of her body, her armpits and around her neck, and would sting angrily if she offered the slightest resistance.

The scent which must have been traveling through the woods was now attracting more than the usual tiny mites and flies that spun over the lake. This escalation of insects took much longer than Faerel had expected it would, and she gave a silent prayer of thanks to the King in the Deep that he had kept her awake for this long.

The villagers, on the other hand, must have had no illusions about the time this would take, which may have been why they helpfully deposited a basket of fire ants into the canoe after they tied her to the boat with her arms and legs out stretched, force fed her bottles of sugary water, and slathered her body with honey.

A beetle with dangerous looking mandibles landed on her upper arm, where she had spat in what felt like days before. If only she had managed to hit her hand instead, the beetle might be within reach now. Still, that was no obstacle to someone who was truly determined.

She rocked the canoe back and forth slowly, moving her hips and arms as best she could in rhythm with the natural motion of the lake. As she did so, she lowered her elbows as far as they would go. As the tips of her elbows descended into the water, the ants that crawled in those areas desperately bit into her flesh to prevent themselves from drowning or being pulled away from such a succulent meal.

Faerel continued to rock. Before too long, she had generated enough roll to get the water up to the beetle. Panicked, it took wing and settled down on her leg instead.

Oh, King in the Deep, you’re a funny bastard, aren’t you?

She jerked her leg as best she could against her bonds, but the beetle refused to fly.

Some part of her wanted to continue the momentum of her roll, roll all the way over until the canoe had flipped. Surely drowning in the water would be better than this gruesome death.

Pain is part of the game, Faerel. Pain is part of the game.

She ground her teeth. The pain didn’t matter, the pain had never mattered, and she would be damned if she gave up now.

Faerel embraced the fear and the sensations that she had been stoically pushing away. She forced herself to smell the putrid swamp air and the vile smell of sugar and honey that permeated the low hanging fog. She forced herself to taste the remnants of the juice that the villagers had poured down her throat. She forced herself to really pay attention to the ants that were now covering most of her body, to the midges that were wandering through her hair, to the gods damned beetle that was eating its fill in the wrong gods damned spot.

The queasiness in her stomach buckled, and bile shot up her throat and into her mouth. She held it closed as best she could, and her throat burned in agony. Faerel raised her stiff head and spat at the beetle on her leg.

The beetle took wing, and fluttered around her body, looking for a clear spot to continue feeding. Faerel offered up desperate prayers to any god that would hear her, not only to the King in the Deep, but the lesser gods: the Plucky Mother, the Master with his Forge, and the rest.

The beetle landed on her lower arm, directly next to her right wrist.

Faerel’s mouth opened into a savage smile.

* * * * * * * *

Elder Aeron walked along the top of the Cliffcomb with Elder Amelia.

“Do you think it was the Drain that caused Julian to kill himself?” He asked.

“I don’t know.” Amelia bit her lip. “Faerel was practically in hysterics. All I could gather was that he was saying… some pretty desperate things as he was…”

“Bleeding out.” Aeron finished. “Yes, I suppose that he would.”

“Cursing the gods, and, and cursing Faerel, and… Aeron, he’s gone for, right? How can that kind of despair stand up in the assembly?”

“He wasn’t in his right mind. I pray that they give him the benefit of the doubt.” He had been begging the King in the Deep for nothing else since Aria had started evening prayer. He was glad to have her carry the ritual on, as he deviated wildly from it in his personal thoughts to do so. “Does Faerel blame herself?”

“I think… I think she can’t not blame herself.”

“The healer said there were, ah, signs of a struggle between Julian and Faerel.” Aeron said.

Amelia was quiet for a moment. “I wish I had known that. I would have counseled her differently; that's a very different kind of guilt. Do you want me to go to her?”

“I don't think so,” Aeron said. “I would hope that she would be sleeping by now, and if she is I would rather not wake her up. You can check on her later, if you like.”

“I will.”

Aeron nodded to himself. “I’m glad you were there for her, Amelia. I’m not sure what I could have done, or would have said. It’s a terrible thing to help a friend and to be repaid in such a horrifying way.”

Together they stared across the plateau. They could see the lights from the settlement by the Upper Rush, which lay at the top of an intricate screw. Ard-Abthen, the greater religious community as a whole, was too high in the mountains above the freshwater ocean to collect any of it. The River Rush, which started at the Wall, flowed directly to Lake Inferior, far below them. From there, it ran into the Drain, a bottomless chasm, around which the prisoners of the realm lived. Some believed that the waters fueled the deep machines of Dotean, the Master with his Forge, one of the four lesser deities. Whatever the explanation, followers of Dotean offered him thanks for his gift of the Drain. Without it, the majority of the island, being under the natural level of the sea, would fill up with water.

For years, the only way for Ard-Abthen to get water was to pray to the gods for rain to replenish Loch Cnoc, which lay at the foot of the novice’s section of the Cliffcomb.

The artisans in Invercard found a solution to that problem. They engineered explosives, and broke a great tunnel in the mountain leading from Loch Inferior to the height of the pass into Ard-Abthen. Within they constructed a metal screw, which miraculously brought water from the Rush to the mountains above for Ard-Abthen to use. The screw required constant turning, and the prisoners below were forced to the menial task in shifts. The screw was hailed as a rival to the four marvels of the lesser deities, which bordered on heresy, but most of the religious were too delighted in the screw’s existence to discourage such talk.

Amelia got up, after a time, and began to head down to the novitiates to check on Faerel.

“The novitiates don’t want to minister at the Drain.” Aeron said.

“They never do. We didn’t, when we were young.” Amelia replied.

“It’s different now. I didn’t want to go because the prisoners were smelly, unpleasant, and were hard to talk to and reason with. They would twist my words and turn every consolation I would give against the gods. They would mock me in front of my peers and my Elders. These children today… there is an actual fear of the Drain and the people therein. Amelia, do you think the world is getting worse?”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “If the world were getting worse, getting truly beyond repair, Aigean would have broken the Wall with storms by now and drowned everyone.” She smiled back at him, resting her hand on the stairwell. “There’s a way out the depths, Aeron. Despair not.”

* * * * * * * *

Faerel splayed open the fingers on her right hand slightly, and dipped it slightly downwards. The honey slowly gathered in her palms, and the beetle crawled downwards to retrieve it.

She caught one of the beetle’s mandibles in between her fingers, and flipped the beetle around so that she held the pincer tightly in her wrist. The beetle tried to fly away, but she was able to hold on despite the honey on her palm. She smashed the beetle against the side of the canoe, as hard as mere wrist motion would allow, and contorted her hand to crush it. In response it bit down with its mandibles.

Pain shot through her arm, and blood welled up on her hand. She continued to ram the beetle against the edge of the boat, and the motion caused the ants running up her arm to bite into her skin to hold on.

At last the beetle stopped twitching, although the excruciating piercing on her hand remained. She gingerly worked her fingers until she held the ruined remains of the beetle in her fist and the intact mandible out in front of her like a knife. She bent her wrist inward, and began to cut against the ropes binding her to the canoe.

The ropes were well corded, and it took her the better part of an hour to break the rope binding her right hand to the canoe. Once she had regained full motion, the rest of the ropes went quickly.

The sun had almost fully risen, and she could hear the village beginning to come to life. Soon someone would be out to check on her, and to feed her more of the sickening fluid—and probably to dump more ants and stinging insects into the boat.

She ripped the last of the ropes off of her and dove into the water. The gathered bugs on her ravaged her flesh, angry at being drowned in this way.

Faerel held her breath, and the biting and stinging subsided. Bugs began to detach and lazily drift around the muck surrounding her, dead and drowned. When she could bear it no more, she broke the surface, and swam towards the edge of the forest, trying to wash herself off of the honey and pick off the bugs as she did so.

She crawled onto the edge of the lake, and vomited up the milky contents of her stomach onto the shore. As she got up, she could see a canoe in the distance, with villagers inside, depart and make towards the center of the lake where her own canoe slowly rocked. Beyond, she could see the sunrise on the ocean. She choked back a genuine, delighted laugh, and weakly limped into the forest.

They would be after her soon, she knew. If the King in the Deep wanted her to be caught, she would be caught. If the King in the Deep wanted her to go free and continue with her plans, she would go free.

She trod on well-formed calluses into the woods as they sloped upwards into the mountains. She would return to the Olean, the Island Beneath soon enough.

Chapter 1: 3,421 | 3,421/50,000

Author’s Note in Comments