Young Flame

“Really?” I can’t help my excitement at the news. “Finally?”

“Well, yes,” Grímr says. “But there are a lot of mermineae crowding the path. Even alone, I don’t think I could sneak by them.”

He looks up at me in concern, but even with his worries about the number of enemies we will face, I feel nothing but giddiness now that we are so close to getting out.

“Well then, let’s go. There’s no reason to wait.”

“Wait. We still need to prepare. I need a stronger body than this if you are going to get through. Nothing good will happen if we go as we are.”

I spare a glance over his pale lizard body. “Nothing in this cavern would be too helpful. Well, except for the monstrosities, but there’s no chance of touching them. You are better off keeping the stealth ability than switching.”

Grímr cuts off a hiss as it leaves his throat. “You’ve been looking through those shadows? I told you to be careful,” he chides before pausing for a few seconds. “Solvei, I don’t know how we are going to get past them.”

I know the knot in my psyche is influencing my thoughts right now, but this is my first opportunity to escape in what feels like forever. There is no chance I’m passing this up.

“Let’s go check it out. What other option do we have?” I try to keep my tone serious, but I’m not sure if I truly hide my exhilaration.

Grímr gives me a worried glance before he turns and leads me away. “It’s a few days’ travel.”

I last met Grímr a week ago, so we shouldn’t be this far away from the mermineae. Did Grímr direct me to the side before, or is he leading me away right now? He wouldn’t be leading me away from the exit now, would he? No. Out of our team, he’s the one I trust the most.

I can’t wait to get out of this horrible underground cave system. The swathes of glow-bugs I’ve gorged on have got me through, but I miss the sky. I want to smell air that isn’t stale. Once more, I’ll be free.

It doesn’t matter what I need to do, I’m getting out.

“So, in those areas devoid of glow bugs, you faced nothing too dangerous, did you?” Grímr asks as he crawls along the ground beside me. “You didn’t go looking down in the tunnels below?”

I send a questioning gaze to the lizard, who cannot notice it. “No. Nothing too strong. A few tears in my outfit are all I needed to worry about.”

“That’s good,” he says.

Is it? It would have been better if there was something strong enough for Grímr to take over. If that was the case, we might have had better options before us than simply sneaking by.

I realise that what we’re doing will be dangerous. Each merminea is strong enough to be comparable to the enhanced members of our team. No matter how much fire I have at my command, I’m never going to push my way through too many of them.

Well, unless the three mermineae that I already killed in the centre of a fungi tube explosion were the strongest of their race. Then, this might be easier than I could have hoped for. But I’m not about to put all my hopes on that slim possibility.

I want to have a look at the exit the mermineae are guarding before I decide on any plan.

We spend most of the next few days in an uncomfortable silence. Grímr stays in a state of thought for most of the time and any time he goes to say anything, the words die in his throat. I try to start conversations on my own, but they always fall off after a few terse exchanges.

Still, his presence makes the trip more comfortable than before. Loneliness isn’t enjoyable.

Eventually, we reach another of those massive shadows that cover everything from one side to another. Grímr walks straight toward where a giant monster is obviously hiding without even hesitating.

I grab his tail before he can leave the safety of the glow-bugs. “What are you doing? We don’t know what’s hiding in that darkness.”

Grímr looks back at me oddly and I let go of his tail immediately; I hate when people hold me like that. I shouldn’t do the same to others.

“The exit is ahead. This is how they reach the flat cavern above,” he says and waits for me.

The monster is covering the path out? I shouldn’t even be surprised that the only place I refused to check is the way up.

“Okay,” I say. If these mermineae can get past whatever hides in the shadow, then I’ll just have to do the same. Better than waiting down here. The lack of worry Grímr expresses about what lies ahead also gives me a reason to push on.

Instead of continuing forward like I expect, Grímr jumps on my leg and climbs up my body until he’s wrapped around my neck and torso.

“There are mermineae ahead. I’m going to cover you in darkness, alright?”

Before I can even question him, the black shroud wraps around us and I can no longer see.

“You’ll have to point out where we’re going if you plan to keep the both of us obscured like this,” I say and Grímr simply nods his head straight ahead.

I was already worried enough about going into the giant shadow, but now I don’t even have the reassuring light of the glow-bugs at my back. Each step I tense, expecting something to jump at me. Or to stumble over the sleeping form of some Titan undisturbed until now.

I’m about to speak up and ask exactly what I should expect ahead of us when Grímr interrupts me.

“I smell them; they aren’t too far ahead,” Grímr whispers in my ear. “Be quiet from now.”

How am I supposed to avoid them if I can’t see them?

I almost vocalise my concern when I feel something that answers that question for me. A hundred metres ahead, there is a patch of heat far warmer than any of the surroundings. Last time I felt this, I didn’t know what it was. Now? My heat sense has improved that I couldn’t mistake it for anything but what it is.

A merminea

The first I’ve seen in months. Well, I still haven’t seen it, but the point is the same. I can tell where it is just from the body heat it exudes. No longer will their camouflage let them ambush me.

I divert my course to avoid it, but soon notice it isn’t alone. As I push further into this darkness, a few more appear in range. Each keeps a good fifty metres between each other, but they all remain motionless. As I move closer, the detail improves and I can distinguish each limb. I creep past the first only twenty metres away. The merminea doesn’t move. So much so that if it wasn’t giving off so much heat, I’d think it was dead. There is no movement in its chest to show that it is breathing.

I move between the mermineae, careful of any motion around me. It’s unsettling walking through the pitch black and knowing there are enemies all around. Has Grímr felt like this the entire time we’ve been down here? The constant stress must have been hard.

Soon, I notice something strange. Ahead of me, I can feel the heat of a few mermineae, but they aren’t on the ground. They seem to be suspended in midair.

Curious, I creep ever closer. More appear above the others, almost vertically. After the point where they rise into the air, I can feel none.

I cast my gaze upward, pointlessly looking for the mermineae through the darkness. Do they have ropes to the ceiling? Is that how they get out? But why would they put them within the shadow that doubtlessly holds some terrifying existence?

I come very close to slamming my head into the stone wall that appears in front of me before I can react.

For a moment, I just stand there, passing my hand over the surface that extends out of my reach and sight. I struggle to suppress my groan. Of course. I’d gone and misled myself.

There was never a terrifying monster hiding in this shadow. It is dark simply because there is nowhere for the glow-bugs to travel this way.

The cavern wall. That’s all that hides within.

I feel foolish. After seeing the arachnid and centipede, I went and fabricated some imaginary monster. I could have risen to the upper cavern at any of the walls I now know I came across on the way through the Alps.

A tap from Grímr snaps me out of my self-ruminations. He jerks his head up above us, obviously thinking I don’t know where to go. Rather than letting him know how stupid I feel for my mistake, I push on.

The wall is smooth. Few places for me to grab and pull myself upward. With no other option, I look around to make sure Grímr’s darkness shrouds me completely. The last thing I want is for those mermineae to see the light I’ll give off.

Limiting it to only my fingertips, I push the heat of my flames until I know I’ll be able to dig through the rock. Grímr twists his head as he feels the heat from my glowing orange fingers. He digs his claws into my shoulder, obviously questioning my action, but I don’t have an option if I want to climb the wall.

I try my hardest to keep my flame hidden as I amplify the temperature, but it seems as impossible as hiding my flames in bird form. I’ll have to rely entirely on Grímr to keep us hidden.

My fingers sink into the stone with ease. After the past few times climbing this way, I’ve learnt that putting too much heat into my hands will do nothing but melt away the handhold I’m trying to rely on. By keeping the heat high enough to slice through stone, but only limiting it to my fingertips, I can lift myself with the rest of my hands without worry of slipping.

I wonder about the walls. Do they encircle a massive cavern or are they more like pillars that can be walked around? Whenever I came across one of these massive shadows, I always descended into the tunnels underneath and sent my flames in search of the next fungi tube to rise to the surface again. Not once did I try to go around.

I can no longer feel the heat from the mermineae on the ground below, so I should be near the half-way point in my climb. It’s not hard to find how far I am from the ceiling. When I’m in range to sense, it would be impossible not to feel it. Above me there are tens of mermineae climbing around and through a vast hole.

The hole is about twenty metres away from the wall, but many mermineae move from the ceiling of this cavern into the flat surface of the cave above. I can’t make out the full size of the hole from where I am, but it’s big. Obviously a hole made by an arachnid.

I have to stop before I reach the top of the wall. A large heat signature moves into the edge of my sense range. It gets closer while I remain motionless and I realise it’s a swarm of mermineae. The detail improves as they move toward the ceiling hole and I can see at least a hundred moving together.

As much as I want to stay still to limit the risk of being seen, I’m too close to the direct path down the wall. With as much speed as I’m willing to risk, I scale the wall until I’m well off to the side. And it’s lucky I put some haste into my movement; the group of mermineae flood through the hole, not stopping for a second before they race down the wall where I was not a moment ago.

They don’t seem all that quick while climbing upside down, but the moment they reach the wall, they rush down with speed I couldn’t hope to compare.

I wait, still, until they are all far below me before continuing up. Not wanting to remain in a position to be found, I don’t approach the hole directly. Instead, I curve up the wall, planning to climb around to the other side of the hole and enter that way. I’m much more likely to be noticed going in directly.

I reach the ceiling and push my fingers into the rock to melt a grip for myself. Or at least, I try. The rock doesn’t melt under my heat. I can’t even feel it warming up.

Right. Enhanced stone. Of course, I can’t burn through the rock that Remus and Bunny couldn’t smash their way through.

Instead of digging my own handholds, I’m going to have to rely on the stalactites that drop from the ceiling. They will not be easy to climb across. I doubt my grip strength is enough to carry me to the hole before I fall, so I need to do something else.

Fortunately, Grímr’s shadow leaves me with an option I haven’t really been able to make use of in the past months. First, I grow claws on the tips of my fingers. I would lengthen my arms, or maybe change my body to imitate a dohrni, but I’m not too sure if the shadow can hide all the light I would create. After watching Remus, I know dohrni bodies could traverse this obstacle without issue.

Instead, I settle with changing only my hands and feet. I morph my feet to allow myself to grip the stalactites without dangling from only my arms. Before long, I’ve changed them to be rather similar to the talons I’m familiar with, only with more surface area to grip. I can’t dig in with my talons, so it’s best not to rely only on the grip I can get from their sharp points.

It isn’t long before I’m ready. With glowing hands and feet, I grasp the first of the stalactites only barely visible through the dark shroud. I tug at the rock formation to make sure it’ll remain attached to the ceiling and my grip won’t come loose. Before I reach with my other arm, I focus on my body and make sure I weigh as little as possible without becoming visible.

There might have been a better way to do this, but trying to push my legs higher up the wall while I slowly creep backward along the ceiling is far harder than I expected. I’m not at all worried about the fall. Even before all my improvements, falls were never too damaging. What’s actually worrying is that I don’t believe the mermineae around me wouldn’t notice us falling.

Awkwardly, I hang from my hands and talons and make my way around. I was right to think the other side of the hole would be less populated. There’s a few I have to avoid when I climb over the edge, but I get into the shallow cavern without issue.

Now I just need to hope my luck keeps up.