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Despite having absorbed the GMC and becoming the boss of the graylings with Birdbrained’s help, Sam was not having a good time in the graylings’ home terrain. Luckily, he was wearing thick clothes that protected his skin from being lacerated by the rocky passage he was crawling through. Despite their small sizes, the animals that usually rode on Sam’s body didn’t walk through the fissure themselves, they continued clinging to him, and Birdbrained, Raindu, and Joe were riding on Sam’s back as if he were a camel.
Beside Sam, Duke was regretting his decision—not the one where he chose to go to Silva Volucris, but the one where he went with Monarch’s arrangements and hired Sam. Most people wouldn’t choose to crawl through this narrow fissure, right? They’d arm themselves and fight their way through the shared border of Et Serpentium and Silva Volucris. Only a masochist would force themselves through this system of caves and tunnels. Duke glared at Sam, jealous of the man’s lack of luggage. Not only did Duke have to crawl through a cave barely wide enough for him to pass through on his belly, but he had to drag his luggage behind him too with the motions of his limbs limited by the short ceiling.
As Duke crawled forward, one thought kept resurfacing within his mind: getting stuck in the fissure for forever. Who knew how long the fissure went on? Who knew if the fissure would become even narrower, preventing him from traveling ahead at all? If he turned back now, how long would it take for him to return to the entrance? How was he going to eat? Was he even going to eat? “Sam,” Duke said. “How much further?”
“Keep crawling,” Vercedei said, responding for Sam, who was also wondering the same thing. “If it was that easy to escape from Et Serpentium, more humans would’ve succeeded in doing it.”
Duke wanted to protest, but what good would protesting do? All he’d accomplish was drying out his mouth. Duke took in a deep breath and continued crawling forward. He was sweating all over, and he found it difficult to concentrate with his heart pounding inside of his chest. His heart was beating so hard he could hear the blood rushing through his ears like the repetitive crashing of ocean waves. He had made up his mind to pursue his dreams even if it meant dying, but … he really didn’t want to die in a cave system underground.
Luckily, the fissure expanded, allowing Duke and Sam more crawling room. Instead of inching and scraping their bellies against the ground, they could climb onto their elbows and knees; however, it was still easier to keep their bellies pressed against the rock. Several minutes—or even hours, Duke had lost track of time long ago—of crawling later, the fissure grew once more, allowing Sam and Duke to stand up; however, there was only enough space for them to walk single file, Sam ahead of Duke.
Duke exhaled and dragged his luggage, which had marks on its surface from being scratched by the ground, into the expanded space. He rifled through his stuff and pulled out his thermos of soup. The cap was easy to unscrew, but when he raised his arm to pour the contents of the thermos into the cap, his elbow scraped against the side of the tunnel, and he accidentally spilled some of his soup onto the ground. He cursed, and he licked up the soup on the exterior before drinking down what he had poured. Once he was done, he walked forward but found Sam missing. There were also two branching paths before him, and he didn’t know which way Sam had gone. “Sam?” Duke asked. “Hello?”
There was no response.
“Sundak?” Duke asked. “Excuse me, but if you can hear me, can you say something, please?”
Faint footsteps resounded in Duke’s ears, and he stiffened. “Sam?” he asked in a whisper. He turned his head to look behind himself. Then, he gulped before shining the flashlight in the direction he was looking. A gray face with large, black, glass-like eyes stared back at him. Since it was short, it didn’t look out of place in the tunnel barely large enough to accommodate a standing human, but it still freaked Duke out. He let out a scream and turned around to run, not caring which way Sam had gone.
Duke fled towards the tunnel on the right. He knew he could eventually escape a maze as long as his right hand remained in contact with the right wall at all times; however, his sprint to safety was short-lived as the tunnel narrowed once more, forcing him to crawl on his hands and knees. “Sundak! Sam! Help!” Duke shouted as he crawled for his life, not caring about the luggage he had left behind. “A grayling is chasing me! Help!”
Duke’s hands and knees suffered, but he pushed through the pain thanks to the help of adrenaline. He scrambled forward with his flashlight in his hands, kicking off his knees to propel himself further. Then, two more graylings came into view ahead of Duke, and he let out another scream. He turned and shone the flashlight behind himself. He was trapped between two groups of graylings. “Please,” he said. “Don’t hurt me! I just somehow ended up here; please, don’t hurt me.”
The graylings approached Duke, and he screamed as they stretched out their four-fingered hands towards him.
***
Sam paused, using his All-Seeing Gaze to take in his surroundings. One moment, he was walking through a narrow tunnel with Duke, and the next moment, he was in an empty cavern. A group of graylings must’ve transported him through space; seeing as they could shift his body without him even seeing them, there must’ve been a lot of graylings about; after all, the more graylings that were gathered, the stronger their powers.
As expected, Sam spotted three graylings walking from the corridor in front of him into the cavern. Despite the short height of the entrance, the graylings were walking upright. However, these graylings didn’t look like the ones he usually on the surface. Their eyes weren’t black; rather, they were white without pupils. Perhaps the black lens-looking eyes were actually just that: lenses to protect their eyes from the sun. Since they were underground, they didn’t need any solar protection.
The eagle clinging onto Sam’s back flapped its wings and clawed its way up Sam’s neck to reach its usual spot atop his head. It spread out its wings and squawked, and the central grayling pointed its fingers at its own face. Then, its head exploded. Birdbrained closed its eyes, and after a few seconds, it opened them again before tapping on Sam’s head with the tip of its beak. It squawked at Sam, and he nodded as he went through the memories Birdbrained had gained from the grayling, which had fulfilled its purpose of existence.
These graylings belonged to a small community of graylings, one which was simply biding its time, waiting for their master to return. When they noticed Birdbrained’s presence, they isolated the source to see if actually belonged to their master or not.
“Where’s the person that was with me?” Vercedei asked. “Make sure he’s safe and unharmed.”
The two graylings glanced at one another before one of them turned to leave. The remaining grayling dragged aside the remains of its buddy, placing it near the wall just in case someone were to trip over the headless corpse. Once it was done clearing the way, the grayling gestured at the tunnel, indicating for Sam to crawl through. Sam wanted to sigh, but he couldn’t not with a snake blocking his mouth. As for needing a light to navigate, thanks to his All-Seeing Gaze, Sam could make out the path as he tracked the grayling in front of him.
After a few minutes of crawling, Sam arrived at another cavern, one which was much larger than the previous one he was in. It was huge, in fact; there were dozens of tunnels extending from the walls, floor, and even from the ceiling. Sam mapped their paths with his All-Seeing Gaze, but it was an extensive series of tunnels, each leading to different destinations. If he had to take a guess, he’d be in a lobby of sorts.
From one of the tunnels off to the side, two graylings staggered forward while dragging a limp body behind them. It was Duke, and he had resigned himself to his fate—or, perhaps, he was fighting his fate by adopting a tactic from the opossum book of combat: playing dead. Duke cracked open one eye to see how his tactic was working. There were dark-purple crystals, which Duke assumed were amethysts, growing out of the walls, and they emitted a very faint light, barely enough to create silhouettes in Duke’s vision. There was another human here; grayling silhouettes weren’t nearly as tall and wide as an adult human’s.
“Duke,” Vercedei said. “I’m glad to see you made it here alive and well.”
Duke didn’t respond. What if this was a trick? Playing dead was the safer option; after all, it kept him alive until now.
“Oh, he must not be the person I’m looking for,” Vercedei said. “You can torture him if you’d like.”
“Wait!” Duke said, his eyes shooting open—not that the action helped him see. “It’s me, Duke! I was just lost in my thoughts earlier, so I didn’t quite catch what you were saying.” He glanced at the graylings holding his hands before getting his legs underneath himself to kneel upright. “There’s no need for torture.”
“You heard him,” Vercedei said. “He’s with me, so there’s no need to torture him.”
The graylings released Duke’s hands, and the man looked at them before raising his head to look at Sam. Were the graylings following Sam’s orders? Instead of asking and potentially ruining a good situation, Duke kept his mouth shut and stood up before looking around. It was dark, and despite the time he had spent being dragged through the tunnels, his eyes hadn’t really adapted too well to the dim lighting. He cleared his throat and awkwardly made his way to Sam’s side, shuffling slowly to prevent himself from bumping into or tripping over things like the small graylings.
“Are you hungry?” Vercedei asked, directing the question towards Duke. “We’re safe now that we’ve made it to the grayling colony. Reptilians won’t chase us this far in, and whatever intrepid humans they sent after us will be stopped before they can get here.”
“I’m hungry, sundak,” Duke said, placing his hand on his stomach. He wasn’t sure if he still needed to call Sam sundak now that they were no longer in Et Serpentium, but it was better to be safe than sorry. As for the current state of his body, he was more than just hungry: he was thirsty, mentally fatigued, physically exhausted, and his palms and knees felt raw, the burning sensation constantly nagging and demanding his attention. “What do graylings eat? Are we having what they have?”
“Graylings eat corn,” Vercedei said. “You’re not allergic, are you?”
“No,” Duke said, shaking his head. “Corn?”
“It’s easy to grow,” Vercedei said and shrugged.
“Underground? Where there’s no sun?” Duke asked.
“Do you want to be fed or not?” Vercedei asked. “Does it matter where or how corn grows?”
***
At Duke’s insistence, Sam and Duke were following a group of graylings by crawling through a series of tunnels. Duke really wanted to see where the corn grew, and Vercedei decided to humor the man because Sam was curious about the graylings’ food source as well. Thus, despite the graylings saying they didn’t mind transporting the corn while the two humans waited in comfort. As for why the graylings simply didn’t teleport Duke and Sam over to the cornfield, it was more economical to make them crawl.
“Why are you so interested in our food source?” one of the graylings asked as it walked alongside Duke and Sam.
“I’m interested in all kinds of plants,” Duke said. “Who isn’t curious about things? My thing is plants.”
“I understand,” the grayling said.
After an unknown amount of time spent crawling had passed, sunlight shone ahead, causing Duke to wince as the rays made contact with his eyes. “Is that the sun?” Duke asked, turning off his flashlight to confirm the light came from another source. “What’s it doing so far underground?”
“It is not the sun,” the grayling said. “It’s the yellow topaz of life.”
Duke crawled forward, his brow furrowed and his eyes squinted at the yellow rays of light. When he crawled close enough to the tunnel’s exit, a field of yellow and green spread out below. The tunnel was located at the top of a cavern with a massive, yellow topaz embedded in the ceiling. It was polished and smooth, and light radiated out of the crystal, the rays warm against Duke’s skin. He crawled out of the tunnel and climbed to his feet, standing on a ledge that stuck out of the side of the cavern’s wall. If he fell off, he’d break a leg at the very least; luckily, there was a winding ramp leading down to the field of corn.
Sam climbed out of the tunnel, and his All-Seeing Gaze fixated on the yellow topaz of life, as the grayling had called it, embedded in the ceiling. He wanted to touch it, and he had a feeling it’d be perfect for unlocking and mastering his Manipura, one of the two remaining chakras he had yet to unlock. “How does this work?” Vercedei asked. “The corn grows because of the yellow topaz of life?”
“That’s correct,” the grayling said. “You sure are wise.”
“And if the yellow topaz of life were to disappear,” Vercedei said. “What exactly would happen?”
“Well, if that were to happen, we’d lose our only source of natural light capable of growing corn,” the grayling said. “In the future, it’ll be much harder to survive, and I imagine most of us will be forced to the surface to scrounge for food there.”
“So, if your master were to request you to surrender the yellow topaz of life to it, what would you do?” Vercedei asked.
“Of course, we’d surrender the yellow topaz of life,” the grayling said. “We obey our master’s every wish.”
“You’re okay with your whole way of life changing because of your devotion to this master of yours?” Duke asked, turning his head and weighing in on the conversation.
“Yes,” the grayling said and nodded its head. “Our purpose in life is to experience it and die. If our master wishes for us to give up our source of life, then that means we have fulfilled our purpose.”
“Does your species believe in an afterlife?” Duke asked. He might as well; who knew when he’d get another chance at communicating with graylings like this? He was learning things no one else had discovered.
“When we die, all of our memories are transmitted to our master,” the grayling said. “In that sense, every grayling that has ever existed or will exist in the future are part of the same entity. All of our memories return to a singular origin; we are one and the same. When we die, we return to the singularity.”
“I see,” Duke said. He gestured towards the field of corn before pointing at the ramp leading down. “Can I look at your crops?”
The grayling glanced at Sam before looking at Duke. “You may,” the grayling said.
“Great,” Duke said and jogged down the ramp despite the lack of safety railings. He went down to the field of corn and touched the damp soil. “Where does this soil come from?”
“We transport it from the ground above,” the grayling that had accompanied him down said. “Sometimes we die while doing it because the mantids aren’t very merciful upon discovering a grayling, but by recycling most of our waste to maintain the nutrient level within the soil, we don’t have to make trips to the surface very often.”
Duke glanced at the soil where the roots of the cornstalks were buried. He turned his head to look at the grayling standing next to him. Then, his eyes went down towards the grayling’s crotch—an unconscious action. “I see,” Duke said and raised his head to look up at the corn. “Is this all the corn your colony of graylings possesses?”
“No,” the grayling said. “We have a colder cavern, one where we store our excess corn in case of emergencies. This harvest is enough to feed us for three years. Our stomachs are extremely efficient at digesting corn.”
Duke was about to respond, but the cavern fell dark, and he raised his head to look up at the ceiling where the yellow topaz of life wasn’t shining anymore. In fact, it wasn’t there at all.