10. A glimpse of the surface

The crystal caverns are vast but not endless. It’s all just a matter of perseverance.
 
 
The evening meal was mushroom porridge as it had been for the last three days. Morning, noon and night, the caravaneers had made the giant mushrooms and the supplies they’d brought from Cerelon stretch to feed fifteen adults. And though some may wish for a tasty piece of meat or fresh vegetables, almost no one when hungry. Except for Fureva-Yung. As was her habit, she left the supplies for those who could eat nothing else and tried scrounging for herself. She’d eaten freshly caught crab that morning, and now she was hungry again.
 
“I’ll go on watch,” She said and stalked away from the main group, her stomach growling.
Me too! Nox replied, quickly spooning the last of her meal into her mouth. Fureva-Yung gave the little one a thumbs up.
“Not fluffy, though,” Fureva-Yung. She had no idea why Nox was talking to her again, but Nox’s fascination with her hair was a new and disturbing twist.
No, not fluffy now, Replied the small mental voice, followed by the image of the strong and formidable Fureva-Yung, her hair on end looking like some ridiculous flower spore. It was humiliating.
“Your blowout did look good, “ Jaden called after then, “ Could I suggest a bow?”
A bow! How about a red one? Nox exclaimed, now obsessed with images of Fureva-Yung with red bows in her hair. Fureva-Yung, however, spotted Marius wandering out of camps alone. Fureva-Yung said nothing. Marius could take care of herself.
“You look for a bow,” Fureva-Yung suggested to Nox, and the two of them settled down for the watch.
 
“Yitti! Yitti, are you awake?”
“No, Marius. I’m dreaming of you waking me up.” Yawned Yitti, who had only just fallen asleep trying not to think of giant crystal eating bugs.
“I need your help,” Marius replied, shaking the large sheet of synth he and the Fureva-Yung had found in the towers back on the surface.
“Wha? What are you doing with that thing?”
“You’ll find out, come on!”
 
On the way out of camp, they stopped and picked up Fureva-Yung coming back from her watch.
“I’m going to try and climb up to the crack,” Marius explained, pointing out the night sky above peaking through the rock above them, “I need you to try and catch me if I fall.”
 
He led them to a wall nearest the fissure, and turning aside so the two others could not see, quietly clipped his gravity nullifier onto his belt and turned it on. Taking a deep breath, he made sure Yitti and Fureva-Yung were ready before jumping up onto the rock.
“She is a very good climber!” Fureva-Yung said as she and the Dritman watched Marius lightly step from foothold to foothold, seemingly climbing with no effort at all. In no time at all, Marius was pulling himself over the edge of the fissure and looked out at the view.
 
Marius was standing on a mountain-side of crystal overlooking a forest in one direction and a floating island of rock straight ahead. Rope bridges hung like vines from the suspended rock and tiny rough huts pock-marked its surface. Down the mountain-side, an immaculate circular garden of green was starkly visible in the rough scrub around it. A garden of sculpted plants and blooming flowers. The garden was bounded by a high hedge that seemingly protected the creations inside from the wilderness outside. Marius thought about the few remaining caves to explore and judged that one of them could be below the circular garden. Between the rock and the garden, dark figures stood silhouetted against the moonlight grasslands around them. Some figures were standing at odd angles, and none of them were moving.
 
Directly below, an opening in the crystal showed a path out of the mountain. Finally, it looked like there was a way for the whole caravan to leave the caverns. He stood for a moment, watching the tiny signs of life from the rock and the lack of such life from the figures in the grass by the garden. He thought about going down and investigating but didn’t like his chances at bouncing down the mountain-side in the middle of the night. Besides, it would be a long walk back up the fissure, even with the gravity nullifier on.
 
Finally, when it was clear that nothing else could be learnt from where he was, he lowered himself back down into the crack and started the long climb back down to Yitti and Fureva-Yung. He wasn’t halfway down when the crystal around him began to shudder. A small fissure opened up to one side of him, and a burst of blue steam ejected from the tear. The surprising force of the steam blew him off his handholds, and when he could see again, he was floating in midair.
“Marius, you are forgetting to fall!” Fureva-Yung’s voice called from below, and Marius silently cursed.
“I’m flying! I’m flying?” He let himself gently float down into the fabric that Yitti and Fureva-Yung were diligently holding out to catch him, “Just one more thing to add to the wonders of this place. Mountain farts.”
 
Fureva-Yung helped him back to his feet, wiping a finger across the blue that now stained him. The blue did not come off.
“Oh, and everything was going so well. Now I feel so blue.”
“What did you see?” Fureva-Yung forgot the magical blue flying fart gas and quickly got back on topic.
“The whole mountain is crystal. And there’s a spaceship tethered to the side of the mountain.”
“More ships of space?”
“Yeah, and there looked like dead people or statues around the outside of a garden, but I couldn’t get close enough.”
“It is a shame we can not go that way. I can not jump and fly like you.”
“Ah, but I also saw a way out. A crack in the mountain not far down the mountainside from where I stood.”
 
The rest of the night was quiet, though the following day, Marius' blue state had progressed. Though the blue stain had fallen from his clothes, anywhere it touched skin, it stained.
“Open your mouth,” Fureva-Yung said of Marius. When he complied, she noticed his mouth and tongue were also blue.”
“Were you poorly yesterday?” Nox asked, unsure what she’d missed out on.
“No, I climbed up to the crack. On the way back, the crystals shifted and squirted me with a blue steam. Say, can you scan me to find out what it is?” Marius held out his arm for Nox to examine.
“I saw Marius fly. I saw it with my own eyes,” Fureva-Yung added unhelpfully.
Curious, Nox did just that, sending her thoughts through skin layers. The blue dye was well into the skin, but even now, the body was starting to break down the substance.
“How can I be blue? It looks fun!”
“Well,” Marius thought seriously, “You can think about how you were chased from your home by murdering robots and trapped under a mountain…blue yet?”
Yes, Nox scowled, not happy to be made fun of.
 
When Jaden was ready, the group started for the last two caves they’d left unexplored the day before.
“Just kidding. Cheer up. I saw a way out that didn’t look far away.”
“Marius, the blue makes you look not so repulsive.” Fureva-Yung shared her observation.
“Ah, I think it’s so when we meet the other blue people again, we won’t be so repulsive to their eyes, and they’ll help us.”
“I don’t think so, Mr Marius,” Nox interjected, “The blue people were helping us at the pit when we were still ugly.”
“You’re right, kid!”
“It is a new look, and you say it gave you antigravity properties?” Jaden asked, also trying to wipe off the blue.
“Looks like it,” He turned to Nox, whose little knife was always ready on her hip, “Give me your knife?”
She handed it over and was appalled when he cut open his palm to see how far the blue had penetrated.
“I could have told you how deep it went!”
“Oh,” He handed back the bloodied knife.
“Still, it’s a good shade on you,” Jaden commented.
“Thank you. Even Fureva-Yung thinks I look good.”
“Less hideous.” The big woman corrected.
“Any other effects?”
Marius shook his head, carefully turned on his antigrav cypher and jumped. He hung suspended in the air before gently floating down to the ground, “I can fly.”
 
By this time, they’d made it to the entrance to the first cavern. The entrance was blocked by several large mushrooms forming a thick wall. To one side, a curtain of white mycelium strands covered a narrow opening. Beyond the mushrooms and mycelium, the group could hear voices humming in harmony accompanied by drums.
 
Jaden reached out for the mycelium. As her fingers touched the strands, they parted, revealing a path beyond, “I guess we go this way.”
As Jaden studied the mycelium, Nox thought back on her studies of plants and fungus with Temela. They were like nothing she knew. Their closest relatives were much smaller and were known for growing their fruiting bodies (the mushroom caps) well apart, so the spores had a chance to escape. Whatever had happened to these mushrooms, it wasn’t natural.
 
“I think this mush-room relates to the garden above,” Marius said after Nox shared what she knew.
“Well, only one way to find out,” Jaden said and walked through the curtain and into the cave.
 
Past the wall of mushrooms, a mushroom stalk as tall as a tree dominated the space. Around the mushroom, a garden of smaller mushrooms brightly coloured or glowing faintly filled the room. Under the cap, a gossamer-light mushroom cap floated by propelling itself like a jellyfish. Behind another mushroom wall and mycelium curtain, the voices and drumming continued.
 
Hello! Nox called telepathically, convinced there was some mind behind this fungal garden and the one that Marius had seen. Maybe they were friendly, like Mamma, the crystal eater. Her telepathic senses touched something above them, a mind curious and waiting. Looking up, she saw only the tree mushroom cap’s gills swaying in some unfelt breeze.
Do you make the music?
They are my creations, so I guess you can say that. Came back the calm thoughts of the one above.
You made these? The floating one and the big clumping ones?
Yes.
 
Nox was about to ask the being’s name when she remembered the others watching her having a silent conversation with the air. She told them about the being and their creations.
“Oh, the garden above too?” Marius asked.
Yes, that is mine too. I like to garden.
On the surface? Nox asked longingly. Though the crystal caverns had been a revelation, she longed for the outside. Fresh breezes and the sun on her face.
Would you like to see it? The voice asked, Step through the mushroom.
 
Jaden, Marius and Fureva-Yung asked questions of Nox to translate back to the being as Nox quietly contemplated seeing the surface once more in the magical garden of this being.
They call me Sharavellen, those that need such things, The being answered their questions as Nox stepped forward into the tree mushroom stalk and disappeared.
 
One moment Nox was underground, breathing the feeling the weight of the mountain above her. The next, she was in a brightly lit garden, standing on a well-clipped lawn. Behind her, the rough bark of a real tree tugged at her clothes. A breeze fluttered through her hair. The sun tingled her cave cold skin, and Nox had to stop herself from literally leaping for joy. From above, an orb with mycelium wings floated into view.
How do you like my garden?
Nox turned her attention to the plants in the garden and was astounded by the shapes and forms the plants had been moulded. A clump of six small trees looked like a typical grove until she saw a branch climb from one trunk to another. She stepped up to the tree and watched as another branch swung around until it touched another tree trunk. Then the branch would meld with the new trunk, disengaging from the old as if it was never connected.
It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen or read about! Nox effused excitedly. She ran from plant to plant, discovering what innovation Sharavellen had created for each.
 
In the fungal cave, Jaden, Marius and Fureva-Yung watched Nox disappear into a mushroom stalk. Marius didn’t wait but ran out of the cave and back to the fissure. Without any suggestion of climbing, he levitated up to the surface. It was slow going, and he wondered what had happened to the kid every moment. Unconsciously, Marius started humming a boppy little tune. Jaden also didn’t hesitate but followed Nox through the mushroom, appearing in the garden only a few moments after Nox. Fureva-Yung found herself alone. She looked around the mushroom trunk and found nothing but the mushroom and the garden. She walked around the cave. Her friends had just disappeared into a very thick trunk. With a sigh, she squared up to the mushroom and walked through.
 
“Jaden! Fureva-Yung! This is Sharavellen and their wonderful garden! Look!” It was the most excited and talkative the companions had ever seen Nox. The young girl pointed to what looked like a topiary of an Aneen, just like the two that pulled the caravan. And then the bush moved, walking on thin twiggy legs, “Sharavellen made all of these. Sharavellen, these are my friend, Jaden and Fureva-Yung.”
Now with Fureva-Yung in the immaculate garden of Sharavellen, Nox grew thoughtful.
Sharavellen, Fureva-Yung sometimes eats sticks and leaves. Do you have something you wouldn’t mind Fureva-Yung eating?
I may, the orb replied, I have a fleshy troublesome sort. Does she eat meat?
 
From beyond the garden’s tall hedge wall, something moved. A gap in the wall opened up, and a body tied up in vines was dragged into the garden. It stopped in front of Fureva-Yung, one baleful goat-eye looking up. It was a margr, the ferocious goat people that had attacked them at the towers.
They break through the hedge wall and destroy the beauty of my garden. Sharavellen told Nox as a fish made of flowers swam past unconcerned.
“I will not eat,” Fureva-Yung said. She ate many things that the other thought were odd, but she would not eat anything that could think.
Nevermind, it will become fertiliser and feed my plants, Sharavellen replied without concern, and the margr disappeared with barely a bleat.
I do have another thing, a fruit perhaps. It did not come out as I would wished. I’m sure I can do better.
 
On the back of another walking topiary came a round orange fruit, about the size of a grapefruit. Even as it moved closer, a faint ticking sound was easily heard in the quiet garden. Fureva-Yung picked up the fruit and took a bite. It tasted tarted and sweet and gave an odd ticking sensation against her teeth and tongue. It was very much like the little ones' oranges, and she offered some to Nox.
Curious, Nox also took a piece and noticed the tiny gears and toothed wheels, springs and levers that made up the fruit's interior. She took a bite out of the clockwork orange and found it delicious.
 
Meanwhile, Marius was now bounding down the mountainside towards the garden. As he drew closer, he could see the margr impaled or bound in vines beyond the garden walls. Not knowing what fate had befallen his friends, he doubled his efforts and flew down the crystalline scree.
 
“Sharavellen, do you have a sense for what is outside your garden?” Jaden asked, wondering what Sharavellen could tell them about the world since they were forced underground.
I sense my garden and its needs. I sense the animals that hurt it. I am content with that, Replied the orb.
“We have come very far. Where we lived, our creations, the automatons rebelled. Have you sensed any of their kind near your garden?”
Au-to-ma-tons? Sharavellen had difficulty with the unusual word.
“Do you know anything of machines? They are made of gears and levers like your fruit. Did you sense anything…five days ago?” Jaden pushed, referring to the day of the rebellion and their escape from Cerelon.
No, Came the simple reply. It seemed that Sharavellen had grown bored of talk beyond the border of their garden. They floated towards a small bush whose branches moved between three main stems with glossy leaves.
I hope not. It is too beautiful here, Nox watched the fish swim through the air. Fureva-Yung poked the orb that was Sharavellen.
Please do not do that, Sharavellen said, startling Nox and making her feel self-conscious.
“You are very tingly,” Fureva-Yung replied by way of explanation.
Thank you, Sharavellen accepted it as a compliment.
“Could you make something for me with your garden?” Fureva-Yung pulled out the end of her chain and showed the crystal link.
Of course, Sharavellen took on the challenge and a plant shot out of the ground and started forming a chain link out of vines. The vine tightened and created a woody link that dropped off. Fureva-Yung picked up the new link and added it to her chain.
 
Marius was within a few metres of the garden. He left the crystal mountainside with one final leap and soared over the hedge wall. As his shadow fell on the garden, vines whipped up from inside the walls and bound him tight. His momentum failed, and he hung in mid-air only a few metres from his friends and the mysterious garden owner.
“Hi, just hanging around,” He joked, unable to untangle himself from the vine's grip.
He’s with us, Nox sighed and waved.
Will it hurt my garden, do you think?
I don’t think so…” Mr Marius, you wouldn’t hurt a plant in Sharavellen’s garden, would you?”
At that exact moment, Marius was wondering what his sword could do against the vines holding him.
“Sure, whatever you say, kid,” He grimaced, “I was just worried about you.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t intrude on your garden anymore,” Jaden suggested and brought Nox close to impede her escape.
 
Sharavellen’s vines put Marius down and then disappeared into the ground or back into the hedge.
“Did you see anything?” Fureva-Yung asked Marius.
“The Spaceship,” He pointed back the way the rocky village floated.
“Spaceship?” Nox asked doubtfully, knowing Marius’ current obsession for anything from space.
“Yeah, the spaceship hovering over there. It has bridges connecting it to the mountain.”
 
No one seemed to know what to make of that. Jaden started pulling Nox towards the tree trunk linked to the mushroom below.
We’re looking for a new home. I hope we can find a home near your garden so we can visit. Nox thought. It seemed Sharavellen was tired of their visitors because they did not reply.
“Keep safe from the automaton,” Jaden warned as she tried pulling Nox into the tree and away.
“I wonder, “ Marius said as they were about to disappear, “If our host could tell me about the blue mountain fart…mist?”
Nox translated to Sharavellen, whose interest in the strangers renewed once more.
Do you wish me to investigate?
“Yes, we think it may be related to the crystal in the caves,” Jaden said, handing over a lump of crystal from Bellyache.
When Marius agreed, the orb drew closer to Marius, the mycelium wings wrapping around, covering Marius all over. They stood still and silent for minutes as the others could only stand and watch. Eventually, Sharavellen unwrapped their wings from around an unusually quiet Marius.
Maybe, maybe not. Sharavellen finally said.
Nox found this answer incomplete and searched Sharavellen’s mind for what it meant by the enigmatic pronouncement. She discovered many trains of thought. Sharavellen’s mind was complex and thought on many more levels than simple humans. Nox persevered, piecing together a few fleeting thoughts, worked out that Sharavellen didn’t like the crystal or the blue mist. Their inorganic nature was not interesting, and there was a disdain for the stuff of the earth.
 
“Thank you, but it is time for us to go,” Nox finally said and, without prompting, walked into the tree. She was back into the coolness of the cave once more. The music was still playing in the other fungal room as Jaden and then Fureva-Yung, and finally, Marius stepped in after her.
“Now look, don’t touch,” Jaden warned as she walked around the second fungal wall and parted the mycelium curtain.
“Yes, Fureva-Yung. Look and not touch.” Nox mimics following her mentor.
 
The music room, as they would come to call it, was full of variously shaped fungus. Tall hollow fungus in the shape of candelabras sighed and ooed their harmonies as a round flat fungus bobbed and throbbed, sounding like a drum. The mysterious music was revealed. The two gardens, the one above and the one below, held many more questions, but for now, their curiosity sated, the group left the fungal cave to its creator.
 
The door and hallway beyond were as they’d left them the day before. Fureva-Yung was bouncing up and down, hoping she, too, could learn to fly like Marius.
“Did you get blue on you too?” Nox asked, searching her furry friend for patches of the mist. Suddenly, the ground shifted and quaked. A puff of red steam streamed out of a new crack in the wall, spraying Fureva-Yung. Now with the bright pink from the crab, Fureva-Yung was the most brilliantly coloured of the four.
“Oh! The cuteness is real, and it is Fureva-Yung.” Said Jaden, trying to brush the red off Fureva-Yung’s fur, with no success. Instead, she took a hair sample and carefully tucked it away for future study.
“It has made me more hideous,” Fureva-Yung lamented, looking down at her left arm to ensure her tattoo was still there and intact. She bounced again, but she didn’t rise any higher than before the red.
“Can’t fly.”
“Must be the wrong stuff,” Marius replied straight-faced and started down the left-hand hallway.
Fureva-Yung, never one to give up, danced behind a mixture of her bounce and a regular walk.
 
As they turned the corner, Marius was sure he could hear a skittering in the walls beside him. Jaden turned as was sure she heard the creak of the vent just up ahead and more of the skittering. Fureva-Yung tried lifting the grate on the vent, but it was welded shut. Nothing could move it. Then Nox felt a wave of overwhelming fear. For a moment, the emotion was all she could feel. Then she remembered she was with friends and there was nothing here to be afraid of. The fear started to feel like something that didn’t belong to her, and she was able to push it aside and almost view it from a distance.
“It’s all illusion. Something here knows how to scare us,” Nox told the others, but silently to the empty hallway, she thought, I am not afraid of you.
 
Now they knew something was here, Nox searched for a mind to link to. She found an angry ball of emotions that just wanted them to leave.
“It doesn’t want us here. Maybe we can be quick,” She told the others
“We should leave,” Marius said as Nox and Fureva-Yung shared a thought.
“Want to run?”
“Bounce,” Fureva-Yung corrected, and in unison, they ran and bounced around the corner.
 
A locked door stood on the inside wall in the middle of the hallway ahead. Fureva-Yung didn’t hesitate and tried to wrench the door open, but it was locked. Marius quietly came up behind her and unlocked the door.
“We shouldn’t be here.”
“Why? We did before.” Fureva-Yung protested as Marius opened the door.
“That was before we knew someone was home.”
The room was empty.
Fureva-Yung threw up her large hands and stalked to the end of the hall.
 
Another locked door stood partway down the hallway. As Fureva-Yung walked up to it, a wave of terror swept over her.
“I must run now,” She said to Nox before dashing down the last stretch of hall. She ran past another door, disregarding it to find the exit in her panic. As she reached the stretch of wall, she was sure the door out should be. All she could see was more blank stone wall.
 
Nox, running after her big friend, felt the mind try to enforce an illusion on her. Ready for their tricks, she brushed it aside and made for the exit door where Fureva-Yung desperately searched.
 
It’s an illusion, She said, trying to project the image of the door. The knowledge that the door should be there and wasn’t didn’t seem to calm Fureva-Yung’s panic.
Trust me, take my hand, She held out her hand to the big woman.
“You need your hand.”
Trust me. The door is here, Nox grabbed Fureva-Yung’s hand and walked through the doorway.
 
To Fureva-Yung, Nox and her hand disappeared into a solid wall. Closing her eyes, she followed. When her eyes opened, she was outside the cave back in the natural cavern, looking down at Nox. Nox smiled, the young girls grey eyes looking directly at her for the first time. Nox was about to say something when the panicked voices of Jaden and Marius called from beyond the door.
“Fureva-Yung? Nox? Where did you go?”
With her smile turning more mischievous, Nox stuck her hand through the door to the horror-stricken cries of the two adults. When it was clear they wouldn’t come near the disembodied arm, Nox walked back into the hallway, grabbed each by the arm and pulled them through.
 
“I am angry and am not shutting door.” Fureva-Yung stormed away, thoroughly ashamed at her fear and panic.
Marius quietly closed the door and followed the group back to camp.
 
That night, though the meal was meagre, spirits were up. The explorers had been on the surface, and Marius had seen a way out of the caverns. Their time in the caves was coming to an end. But, they were still very far from home with no idea what the outside world would contain.