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Chapter 24

Melelea

We follow Granite and the others out of the village and down a new tunnel. The star lichen becomes less dense the further we move from the central cavern. When we find ourselves at a dead end, the golem presses another stone, and the wall in front of us proves to be another secret door, opening into total darkness, a billow of cold air coming into the passageway.

“You can use your lumen crystal again until we reach the surface,” rumbles Granite.

I pull out the lumen fragment, tapping it with a finger and lighting it. As it begins to gently glow, the star lichen’s light fades around us, looking like plain moss. I will miss its beauty, but I must confess that I will be glad to get out of the mountain. The oppressive darkness of the mines and the constant fear of danger are not things I will miss.

Not that the mines will not have their share of good memories too. I smile secretly, thinking of my interlude with Wodred at the hot spring. I felt beautiful and wanton and alive then. He has awakened feelings in me that I considered long dead, but they have roared to life with a vengeance. I am hungry for his touch, hungry for his praise. Though we are on the edge of danger and in the middle of a perilous quest, I cannot regret what we have done together. Perhaps there is no better time for passion than before one must face death. Later could be too late.

As we walk quietly through the tunnels, the air getting colder and colder as we ascend, I can’t help but worry about Wodred. I still have our only heat charm hanging around my neck, and when we exit the mine, we will be close to the mountain’s peak, where the air is thinner and colder. Will his cloak be enough?

“Are you all right?” I ask him quietly. However, since no one else is speaking, my words echo like I shouted them. “Cold?”

“I am fine,” Wodred says. “I have trained in harsh winter conditions, and my cloak and boots are thick. I can withstand a little cold.”

I’m dubious of his claims, but don’t argue with him. The only other choice we have is for him to carry me, but he can’t fight like that, and we are about to head into hostile territory. He needs to be able to use his weapon. I suppose I could give back the heat charm, but I know he would balk at the suggestion. I know that he could be dying of the cold, and he would insist I keep it.

So I stay silent on that front and just turn back to Granite, who walks a little ahead of me.

“Thank you,” I say softly, “for all your help. We would have been lost underground if it weren’t for you.”

“You are deserving of our help,” the golem replies evenly. “We could feel it in your magic.”

“My magic?” I query. “What do you mean?”

“Since golems are made of magic and stone, we do not see as flesh races do. Instead, we can feel others through kinds of magics in all things,” Granite explains without emotion. “The type and source. It’s how we knew there was a demon and that his magic and malice are bleeding into the mountain. Your magic is gentle, kind. Its source is from goodness and is not in conflict with nature. It’s how we knew you were to be trusted.”

I am speechless at his explanation. I knew that golems that are left active for long stretches can gain intelligence and consciousness, but the ability to sense magic is a power I did not know that they had.

“Not all of your villagers trusted us,” I point out.

“Most of them have never seen a flesh creature before,” Granite says. “You are new to them. And most of the stories that they have heard of your kind, or at least the humans, are from Dacite, and he has no love for flesh creatures.”

“Why?” I ask. “What happened to him?”

The golem is silent for a long stretch, but just when I think he won’t answer me, he replies, “The four of us, Dacite, Basalt, Shale, and I worked for the humans. We were created by them. They were not kind to us. Even as we began to be aware, they did not care and treated us with callous cruelty. Then, one day, we were separated from the company by a cave-in. We were not destroyed, and waited to be dug out . . . but they never did. We were abandoned.”

Abandoned. I feel a well of sympathy for the golems. What must it be like to be cruelly treated by those who created you, only to be left behind?

He continues, “We wandered through the tunnels, trying to find a way out. We still had our pickaxes and could still mine, so we did that. We thought we would just try to get out until the magic animating us faded.”

Realization strikes me, “But you found the star lichen, didn’t you?”

The golem nods. “The magic in the lichen could keep us animated for thousands of years, if not longer. We have already been down there for ten years and are stronger, more alive than ever. It is our lifeblood and the lifeblood of the mountain.”

How lucky, I think, that Grazrath is on top of the mountain, unaware that all the magic he could ever want is right underneath him. If he had found the star lichen, he could have opened a portal to the Nether long ago. It is probably only through the kindness of Fate itself that the golems have been here protecting it and hiding it away from the world.

“It’s with the star lichen that you created the other golems, isn’t it?” I ask.

“Dacite figured out that if we took a stone from our own bodies and used it to build another golem, the star lichen would animate the figure, and a new golem would be born,” Granite says. “The new golems are like our children in that way.”

“Then I must thank you even more that you would risk bringing us to your village, to your family, in that case,” I tell him, and I mean it. They risked much to help us.

“Your magic and heart are pure, and you swore you would not reveal us to the outside world,” Granite says simply. “Our secret is safe with you.”

As he finishes speaking, we come around a corner and I see a pinprick of light in the distance.