The Highway

As Bard walked behind Sa’ar, one thing was becoming very clear. This was no simple cave. The path was long, and with the pervasive darkness, it was hard to get a gauge of just how long they had been walking. The main time tracker was them falling asleep, eating through rations and their dwindling supply of lightsticks.

Sa’ar had them stop in a larger chamber for a brief respite.

Sen thanked him for the bit of food he handed her, and he looked in the bag and took a smaller portion and ate it without drawing attention to it. She would need the energy if they encountered danger. She was the fighter, after all.

“Bard, don’t you think it’s off?” Sen asked, looking at the ceiling and then walls. Bard looked around, the light barely reaching the edges, but not the corners. He paused. There were corners.

Although the cave had originally felt natural getting bigger and smaller, even shrinking so that they had to nearly crawl through at places, now it was spacious and seemed to carry chisel marks on all but the floor.

“It seems carved, intentional,” she continued and Bard nodded. He looked back at where they had come and saw the hallway like structure. His mind wandered to what he had seen but paid little attention to.

“Do you remember those offshoots? Like tunnels, or hallways,” he mused. Sen nodded this time. Bard’s eyes looked towards Sa’ar who was staring silently in the direction they would be heading next. Bard could still remember those black wings as he shaded Father Tree, and he clutched at his tokens, painfully aware that he had left that behind.

“How long do these tunnels go?” Sen asked. “And how long would it have taken to make them?”

“I don’t know,” Bard answered, returning to the conversation.

“Though it doesn’t take much to guess why they were built.” Sen bit into her food while Bard cocked his head, an amused grin on his face.

“And why is that?”

“Well, think about it. Where do the shades go during the day when the suns are out?” she said as if it was obvious. Bard shook his head. It was a simple answer.

“Usually they find places with lots of shade. Take, for example, the ruins of all those cities.”

Sen nodded, but had a glint in her eyes that said there was more. “Right. But then they would be stuck there until nighttime. Bard… think. There were never enough shades in those ruins to be the thousands that we faced for three nights in a row. It was as if they appeared out of nowhere. And there aren’t that many massive ruins near Sal Shefa anyway. And we took care of the caves and-”

“I get it Sen, you make a strong point,” Bard chuckled before looking around. He recalled back to those days and a stern frown fixed itself on his face.

“Now that you mention it, the shades didn’t retreat towards any cities before sun, right. Is it… is it possible there is an entrance to this place near Sal Shefa?”

He shook his head. That would be impossible. They were so far away. But then again, they could have a separate space over there. That, too, didn’t make any sense. It would take too long to build something of this size to hold the hoards.

“It’s safe to assume that there is, and that it connects into these tunnels,” Sen countered as if reading his trail of thoughts. Bard looked up in question.

“Why is that?”

“Sal Shefa may be a bit off the path, but it would be safe to conclude that they could have been building it since the first sightings of the shades. And they did go after the silver woods, so you could argue that-”

“They would build a road from here to there and have a side branch to Sal Shefa.” Bard sighed as a bit of foreboding grew. “That would mean… that these tunnels are far more extensive than we can imagine. It’s possible, especially seeing how fast the shades have been moving the last few years.” His eyes naturally fell to his and Sen’s tokens around their necks.

“Still,” he groaned, rising and brushing himself off. “These tunnels are quite impressive.”

Sa’ar looked back at them, his head tilting slightly, reminding him of how Kai would react.

“Yes. I think we are done. Thanks for the break,” Bard commented to their guide before turning and helping Sen to stand. She quickly snarfed down her food and stood next to him.

Sa’ar simply nodded before turning and walking down one of the off shoots.

Sen stayed close, though not clinging. Their footsteps continued to be the only noise in these tunnels, as not even the shades made a noise.

Around bends, across chasms, through tunnels, and past halls. Their path twisted this way and that, with so many paths that they became quite lost, their sense of direction becoming just as gone as their sense of time. The lightsticks dwindled till there were three left. Once those were gone, then would they still continue on? Guided by the golden eyes of Sa’ar? He had promised them safety in their travels, but now, Bard grew worried. They couldn’t go back. They didn’t even know which way, and they had used over twelve light sticks to get here. Nothing had seemed the same, so that was a lot of distance to traverse in the dark and dealing with shades, let alone with dwindling supplies.

Sa’ar looked back at them and then turned down a path with that same ominous black that covered the path. Bard kept Sen back a bit as he stepped out after him, peering down into the next abyss. How many times had they done this? Enough times for Bard and Sen to be able to keep pace, despite the difficulty with their footing.

They came to another cavern like place, more caves than carved, and Sa’ar had them rest once more. This time they slept. Bard pulled out his flute and played a gentle melody to fill the darkness. He kept to the basics of Father’s tune as he wondered what sort of song he could use to reach the leader of the shades. While Sen slept, he noticed Sa’ar comfort a shade and send it on its way. He stopped what he was doing, rose and walked over, looking at the darkness before them. They looked out over an expanse that seemed to have a strange heat rising from beneath.

“You cannot see,” Sa’ar said, surprising Bard. He looked at the bird shade and then shook his head. “But you can hear.”

It was a gentle reminder, and it felt a bit out of place. What was there to hear here? Was it the silence? It made less sense than when he sat on that rock all those years ago.

Sa’ar’s eyes softened and partially closed, as if to look a bit apologetic.

“You were raised by him. Jay.”

“You knew him?” Bard asked, feeling it still a bit odd to be talking with a shade.

“He was my tree before I shaded. I served him. How fortunate I could watch over him to the end,” Sa’ar hummed.

Bard sighed in response. The shades made less and less sense the more he spent down here. But at the same time, this place was far more grand and massive than one would need for a road and even a place for all these shades to live. It was comfortable, if not strange.

Bard stayed next to Sa’ar until his eyes wouldn’t stay open anymore.

“Rest, fledgling. You will need it for tomorrow,” Sa’ar chuckled. Bard smiled ruefully.

“I look that tired?” he nearly chuckled. He then closed an eye as Sa’ar brushed his cloak against his cheek.

“Rest,” he insisted. “I will keep you safe.”

Bard yawned and stretched, but stayed there a bit longer before his yawning kept his eyes half closed. He then moved over to Sen and laid next to her. As his hand rested on her side, she rolled over and then snuggled into him before falling asleep. Bard smiled while he sighed and tried to sleep.