Rennard and Milton had wandered for hours deep in the roots of the
mountains. The one solace they had was Rennard’s flames, keeping both their
naked bodies warm down in the damp depths and lighting the dark tunnel. Though
the comfort was small. They had just snapped out of the Charmer’s hold and
escaped, when, once again, fate managed to waylay them in the form of a random
horny servant. The rank smell of her pussy lingered on Rennard, even after he’d
unleashed a blaze from every inch of his skin to burn as much of it off as he
could.
Rennard led the way with his forearm bathed in flames, used like a
torch. The tunnel occasionally opened up, though seldom departed from its
narrow tendencies. Streaks of moss helped cushion their steps, otherwise
unkind. Bats would flap in their wake sometimes, drips of water and small
streamlets could be heard. At least they had pure water to drink.
Milton sighed. “Still nothing in sight.”
“I can tell, genius.”
“If this path doesn’t go up anytime soon, we should start looking for
cracks and crevices upwards. Going straight won’t lead us to the surface.”
“You hear yourself? These tunnels have kept going, they’re reliable. We
have water. I’ll roast these goddamn bats if hunger gets to it. But I’m not
sidling up some cramped crevice.”
Milton sighed again, not in disagreement but general annoyance.
“I know,” Rennard said. “It’s all gone to shit. If we somehow get out of
here, I’m not trusting a single fucking giant ever again. Have we gotten bad
luck with our encounters? Maybe. But it’s insanity to have gone through what we
have and try the same shit. We’re doing it to ourselves at this point.”
“You know what?” Milton raised his arms in surrender. “I’m with you. I
don’t want to overthink this anymore.”
“Good.”
“I wonder where Henry’s ended up.”
“All started back when that dumb brat grabbed us and took us to the
Charmer. Henry might have ended up worse than us, who knows.” Rennard snorted.
“Gray Rhinos and who knows fucking what.”
“I was thinking, if we could just reach some officials of a reputable
house, loyal to the kingdom, and prove we’re from Humius, they might send us
back.”
“If they’ve got any dignity worth glancing at, which we can’t trust. If
we see the most well-dressed officer strut out of the ministry, if the
opportunity bloody falls into our laps, then maybe. But for now, we make for
the border ourselves. Fuck giants. It’s on us.”
“Absolutely.”
They proceeded through the tunnels for another hour until the walls were
lost, opening exceptionally, a vast cavernous space where the rumbling of a
river echoed off the walls. The massive grotto had a lake in the middle, a
waterfall crashing into it, and it was sunlit, and at first the two young men
were confused, thinking they had indeed walked upwards unaware, for the rays of
sunlight from the cavern’s roof was too authentic. Both jogged to the lakeside
expectantly.
Rennard squinted at the sunlight. “It doesn’t look right.”
“What is that?”
“Sunrocks, it looks like. They can conduct sunlight.”
“Sunlight, as in from the sun and outside? So those sunrocks are
connected to the surface?”
“Yes. So, either these sunrocks are terribly long and extend all the way
to the face of the mountain, or we’re closer to the surface than we thought.”
Milton studied the sides of the grotto curving up. “I can’t see any way
up.” They circled the lakeside, observing. The sunlight which the sunrocks
brought from the surface was authentic, enabling an interesting ecosystem. Here
within the mountains, bushes and tiny trees grew near the lake on fat
mattresses of moss and soil. There were rowan trees and cranberry bushes.
Rennard and Milton feasted on the berries. They ate plenty, lips and fingers
stickily red, and washed it down with the mountain’s pure water. Plenty of
water poured into the lake, and they found a point where a stream flowed out
and down another tunnel, but they didn’t want to head downwards. Searching further,
near the waterfall, another tunnel went narrow first and opened later,
following upwards along the stream which poured into the lake. Rennard’s flames
were needed in the dark space again. They traveled up with it, a promising
sign.
After half an hour, Rennard froze, a paused hand raised. “You hear
that?”
Milton focused. Echoes of voices were bouncing off the rock. “It’s men.
They’re humans.” The two scurried forward with curious hope. The voices became
clearer, individual words distinct, along with the tunnel becoming steeper and
steeper. Bushes and vines shrouded the passage. They pushed through, and
combined with a sudden plateau of the ground underneath, they stumbled into the
bushes, kicking and jumping out of it.
Three middle-aged men stared slack-jawed at them. Their shirts and
trousers were made of leaves, and they held spades and tillers. Rennard and
Milton had barged into another vast openness, rivaling the lake they had come
from. Sunrocks shone down upon the space here as well, with long stretches of
soil for farmland. If one shaded their eyes, ignored the distant stone walls,
one might think they were outside.
“Where’d you boys come from?” one of the men said.
“And why in lord’s name are you naked?”
Rennard threw Milton a smile. “We fell down someplace. Long goddamn
story, friends. But we need to find a way back up to the surface. I assume
we’re close?”
“Back to what surface?”
“The surface.”
His response didn’t seem to register.
“You know, above these caves, on the mountains, with the skies above
you.”
The three exchanged looks amongst one another, confused still.
“What part aren’t you getting?” Rennard said.
Milton added to the question. “Have you seen the world outside? Out of
these caves, I mean.”
They found the question amusing. “No, we haven’t.”
Rennard rubbed his hands together, a jittery beginning to frustration.
“Come on now, gentlemen, there’s got to be a way out of here.”
“Does the name Gintessa ring a bell?” Milton asked. “Or Humius?”
They shrugged and shook their heads amongst one another.
Rennard snorted. “Good lord.”
A woman from behind called, emerging from one of the many cabins along
the farmlands. One of the three men went to meet her, and the two men who
stayed spoke amongst each other. Milton and Rennard did the same, turning
around and lowering their voices.
“So we happened to stumble on some underground civilization?” Rennard
said.
“They don’t even know about the rest of the world. I don’t want to be
negative, but the chances of finding a way out of here, with these people
having lived here for all their lives and not knowing anything about it, it’s
slim. Honestly, this is a half-decent life they’ve made for themselves down
here, free from the giants. But it doesn’t seem like they’re hiding. They’re
genuinely unaware.”
“Then…” Rennard nodded his head towards the opposite end of the room
where an enormous tunnel led out, with cattle and a wagon moving through,
suggesting further areas of this civilization. “We can be sure there’s no way out
from there.” Rennard looked back at the bushes and thickets they’d emerged
from, shrouded in the corner of this cavernous space. “But do they know about
that tunnel? If not, then they don’t know there’s not a way up from where we
came. We’ll see what they say. If it’s not good enough, we might have to think
about backtracking. There were plenty of branching paths we left unexplored.”
“Lads.” One of the men approached them with two cotton shorts. “Put
these on for Goddess’s sake.”
Rennard snorted. “We didn’t choose this.” They both received the legwear
and put them on, tight and barely covering their knees, but welcome to receive.
“You two seem puzzled, with a lot of questions. We’ll take you to
Goddess Helga, she’ll surely be able to help you.” They followed the man. As
they did, it progressively dawned on them just how vast the space was, a good
twenty minutes until they even reached the large hallway leading out of there.
A few sunrocks along the top helped illuminate, otherwise there were torches
and stones lit by magic. Most people wore clothes made of leaves and interwoven
vines, which did not seem like natural handiwork, for none of them had
withered.
“Do you make those clothes yourself?” Milton asked.
“It’s Goddess Helga’s enchantments that touch these lands and enable
miracles.”
Milton and Rennard received plenty of stares and looks; this limited
population knowing every face along with them being half-naked made them stand
out.
“When we emerged from the bushes,” Milton said. “There was a tunnel thereunder.
Do you guys know about it?”
“We’re aware. But Goddess Helga doesn’t wish us to go there, so we
don’t.”
Rennard grinned. “Does Goddess Helga tell you when to shit as well?”
The man did not find that funny, and Milton gave his friend a scolding
swat on the arm. Milton had a growing suspicion and decided to ask the man.
“This Goddess Helga, is she a giant?”
“She is a goddess, the one who nourishes our lands, and she is giant,
yes. I’m not sure what ‘a’ giant is supposed to mean.” The boys decided
not to push it.
The walls of the tunnel gave way to the next pocket of space, the town,
sunrocks along the top doing their best to convince them they were outside, a
premise undercut by the ascending rock undersides of the mountain. The houses
were made simply of wood and stone. Wood was no rare commodity with sunlight
and soil and water available.
Rennard knocked on Milton’s shoulder to get his attention, indicating
ahead. A large girl’s head poked above a rooftop down the street ahead of them,
and to their surprise, she didn’t seem too enormous. A couple of villagers
thanked her for an errand and left. Milton and Rennard were used to the giants
being around sixty to seventy feet, but this one stood around thirty-five to
forty. Of course, she still towered over them as the guide led them before her,
though it wasn’t what they were used to. Her young and lively feet, from heel
to toe, would cover them up to their chests while the usual giant’s foot
comfortably swallowed them up. The girl was a teenager, with brown bobbed hair
and wearing a dress made of leaves. The dress was without sleeves and fell to her
knees.
The man who led Milton and Rennard stepped ahead of them, bowing to the
girl. “Dearest Disciple. These are two confused young men I found by our farms.
They emerged from the forbidden tunnel, wearing nothing but their own skin.
They seem terribly absent, speaking of returning to some ‘surface above’. Could
you help them?”
A few people had gathered, the attention Milton and Rennard brought
along with confronting this ‘Disciple’ culminating to something of a gathering.
The giant needed time to think, studying the two boys.
“Of course, good of you to bring them. They should come with me.” She
stepped past the man, coming before Rennard and Milton. Rennard gave his friend
an uneasy look, but the disciple got on a knee, a welcome gesture. She
presented her two palms. “I will now take you, if you are fine with it.”
Despite a measured expression towards the boys, she had an affable and dutiful
aura, enough that the boys trusted her and stepped forward. Her hands grabbed
their torsos, unable to encircle them with her fingers. She rose with them in a
hand each, evading the crowds. Likely due to her smaller size compared to
normal giants, but she had the most unobtrusive advance of any giant they’d
noticed, her soft feet like feathers against the packed soil. She was
relatively thin for her size as well, her fingers warm against their chest.
Leaving the streets, she arrived at a corner by the periphery of the
town and placed them on a rooftop, level to her chest. “How much of that man’s
explanation holds true?”
“Everything except for us being confused.”
Milton had to cut in. “Can we establish one thing first. Do you know
that there’s a world above here, on the surface?”
Despite the measures taken to be far from any ears, she turned about one
last time to check for others in the area. “I’ve heard about it from Goddess
Helga, yes.”
“Surely there’s a way out of here?”
“Keep your voices lowered on these topics. Yes, there is, something only
Goddess Helga would know. But you’ve stirred a lot of attention, which isn’t
appreciated. How did you end up here in Greenreach?”
“We were chased, and fell,” Milton said. “It was the most obscure corner
you could imagine. I can see how this place isn’t found.”
“You were chased?”
“Umm, yeah.” Milton realized late how their awkward nature made them
look, so he had to be frank and reduce suspicion. “There’s a girl who tried to
fuck us. I can’t explain it better than that. Do you feel the stench from my
friend?”
“Well…” The disciple had carried herself with grace so far, and now she
visibly flushed. Rennard didn’t enjoy Milton’s forwardness either.
“What I meant to get at,” she said, “is if they saw you fall, saw the
way down here.”
“I doubt it. It was too narrow for her. And she was some lone actor, a
nobody. So are we. We’re not important people. We just wanted to go home when
we were intercepted.”
“For about the millionth time,” Rennard muttered.
The disciple measured them for a while, then said. “You must meet
Goddess Helga. She will know what’s best.” She picked them off the rooftop and
marched on. Already they could see her likely destination, the large flight of
steps at the end of this cavernous space leading to a gargantuan doorway more
than enough for a giant to fit through. Two identical statues of a giant woman
towered high, naked, the people who walked thereunder small and insignificant.
The disciple rose multiple steps in one stride, nodding in return to
those who greeted her. Curiously, whether out of respect or knowing their
place, they didn’t ask who Rennard and Milton were despite the clear desire to
know. Stares trailed after them, whispering to each other after the disciple
passed. A few of them took an interested walk after them, but the disciple
urged them to stay behind, and they did.
After the final step, the disciple stepped into the hallway, somewhat
shadowy but with vines growing along its walls with purple and blue blossom.
The hallway turned, and thereafter they could spot the massive figure sitting
in the distance. She was on a great throne of stone coiled in leafy vines, lush
with flowers of yellow and red and green and violet. This Goddess Helga herself
wore a resplendent white dress, reaching her shins. Helga had a rather thin
shape, a pale complexion, but just as this disciple surprised them in being under
the usual size of a giant, the Goddess exceeded the normal. The common adult
giant was around seventy feet; Helga was just over a hundred. Each step the
disciple took steadily removed doubts, doubts they wish were true. But the
closer she got, the greater Helga seemed.
A feeling that arose within Rennard and Milton when the disciple carried
them, and now was fully actualized, was that they were no longer in control.
Little ideas of breaking away from the disciple holding them and rushing
straight out popped in their minds, back out the tunnel, to the farmlands and
through the bushes, back to where they were in control, for there was no world
where they would put a dent on the giant before them. More than her size was
something the boys as wielders of magic could sense, the aura she emanated,
especially from the tiny stone on her forehead. There was something uncanny
about it, something beyond this world. And her face told the story of a young
lady, with a delicate round face, lustrous blue eyes, pale delicate skin and
yellow hair falling like a cape behind her. The youth contrasted to the way
everyone spoke of this goddess, something traditional and long-lasting. The
jewel on her forehead pulsated with a bluish white light, and although tiny, it
clearly protruded from her skin.
The throne room was tremendous, Goddess Helga and her throne nearing the
back end. A river coursed through its middle, travelling under a bridge, and
her throne seemed like the middle of all the growth of the room, the confluence
of all the roots, and along its gigantic vines closest to her throne trees of
apple and orange and peach grew plentifully.
The disciple crossed the bridge and placed Milton and Rennard on a
circle of lilies before the throne. They craned their necks high to see the
Goddess’s face studying them, unable to read emotion. Before them were her pale
feet, larger than any pair they’d seen before. Even though Helga had a thin
stature and was small for her proportions, her foot was longer than both boys
combined, clean, smooth, and free of wrinkles.
The disciple’s head barely reached the arm of Helga’s throne. Helga
leaned down and the disciple whispered for a long several seconds. Helga sat
upright in the throne again, a radiant smile that Rennard wasn’t buying. “My children,”
she said, an unfitting rich and dark voice belonging to an older lady. “I must
speak to these two visitors, in private.”
Everyone in the room moved out, no hesitation. There were whispers at
the far end, glances back, but they left, and the disciple trailed after the
last one out and stood sentry by the doorway.
“We never get visitors around here,” Helga said. “Certainly, you must
have told your story to others multiple times. But I ask of you to tell it to
me one last time, and with great detail.”
Milton nodded to his friend and took the lead, going through everything
from their village in Humius to underneath these mountains. They were becoming
experts. When he finished his story, he asked, “So, my lady, you do know of a
world outside here? And that there’s other giants like you?”
Something about the question didn’t sit right with her, and Milton
couldn’t figure out what. “Yes, I know of the world outside. They do not know
about us. That is what keeps us safe.”
“Please, we only want to return home,” Rennard said, finding some hope
in Helga he hadn’t had earlier in their journey. “It’s a humble village much
like this place. We are the same as these people.”
“I understand. But you must understand my concern about the safety of
our home.”
“What danger would we pose?”
“You know of this place. That knowledge is a danger to us.”
“What are you suggesting?” Rennard couldn’t be still when the scary
notion of them being unable to leave floated about. “There has to be a solution.”
Helga leaned forward, her torso folding over her legs. The two boys
stepped back as she presented her hands flat before them. As with the disciple,
there was an inviting and respectful air about them. Helga especially with her
angelic demeanor made it an act of spite and disrespect to refuse her, so they
both stepped onto a hand each. She rose back to her seat, bringing Rennard and
Milton to her lap. The skin of her palms was as smooth as the fabric of her
dress, as if stroking the clouds themselves.
“I apologize, but you have to tolerate staying here awhile.” Her thumb
ran up and down along their backs, in under their armpits, along their chest,
both examining and petting them. They didn’t know if she was establishing
superiority, but the act came very naturally to her. “You will be made
comfortable, treated well, because I would like to see the contents of your
character. And then I’ll decide. Your happiness will be of utmost importance.”
Rennard and Milton looked between one another. Were they allowed to
leave this instant? No. But thinking back on their journey, what all the other
giants they’d come across had done to them, it put her offer in perspective.
Rennard met her eyes. “You know what? That’s the best damn offer we’ve
gotten.”