caveling

[caveling]

Chapter 1: Pupils

Moss had fallen in love with her people's funeral ceremony at a young age, shortly after one of her grandfathers had passed away. She marched somberly with her parents and a few close relatives down the narrow tunnel to the deepest part of the caverns where the air was stifling and cold. It was her first time being that deep in the cave, and being a small child she wasn't sure what was really going on. But her family marched on quietly until the tunnel opened up to a wide room with an unusual mixture of scents.

Wood smoke and incense, an overpowering combination, was the first thing she noticed as they all spread out into the space before them. It was a warm, thick fragrance that drifted around them and clung to everything it touched. Traces of bark, sap, and flowers that she didn't even recognize wove themselves into her hair and brushed against her skin. 

The strength of it was overwhelming, but after a moment she realized that the smoke was barely stronger than the other, less pleasant odor in the room.

She had learned in school that Death’s River ran alongside Brambor Cave, deep underground, crossing into Brambor at a handful of points before it flowed out into the ocean. The funeral chamber was the last point of access to the river before the estuary, and the flow down here was gentle and steady enough that sometimes seawater would wash back upstream, bringing all manner of creatures with it that would feed on the remains of the dead as they were slowly carried out into the sea. She took a deep breath, and for the first time smelled and tasted the briny odor of seawater on the cold air. That was the moment she realized why her family was gathered here. Someone had died and was about to be dropped into the river.

Finally, the scent of medicine and illness surfaced, having been hidden under everything else.

A shiver danced over her skin, and she searched the room, trying to sift through the soft, sorrowful murmurs of the adults around her, hoping for a hint of what was to happen next, and when. Someone mentioned her grandfather's name, another began to sob, and Moss's heart ached in sympathy, but there was nothing she could do. The melancholy atmosphere was too much for an innocent child like herself to bear, and she only wanted to go home. She tugged on her mother's shawl, ready to ask if she could leave, when a new voice sounded out over the crowd.

They seemed to have come from nowhere, and as they passed by Moss she realized that it was because the scent of the funeral chamber was woven so tightly into their clothes and skin that they seemed to be a part of the room itself. They introduced themself as Flint, the funeral director, and asked for everyone's attention. Moss fidgeted with her sleeves, listening only partly to the long sermon that followed.  Flint dragged on for nearly half an hour, speaking of peaceful waters and how the accomplishments one made in life were guaranteed to echo on after one was gone.

There was a break in ceremony that followed, as those around her began to speak of memories of her late grandfather. They recalled what kind of person he was, and what he had done throughout his life. Some could barely speak, their voices tired from crying. Moss had nothing of her own to share, having only met the man once, she didn't really know much about him. So she kept quiet, nuzzling into her mother's side as the conversation around them gradually fell silent.

Once everyone had run out of things to say, Flint began to tap out a slow, gentle rhythm on a metal drum. Two people shuffled forward to move the body, picking him up with two lengths of rope and carrying him over to the cliff, where they lowered his body gently into the river. As he drifted away, the atmosphere around them began to lift. Moss could hardly believe it, that the sorrow that had been so tangible at the start of the hour was slowly evaporating until she could barely feel it.

After everything was over, and her family filed back up the tunnel toward their home, she began to wonder how Flint could blend into the scenery, and so easily change the emotional atmosphere of a group of people who were grieving so heavily. She wondered if there had to be some sort of magic in the chamber, or in the ceremony itself.

A few days later, she snuck back down to the funeral chamber and explored the room fully, fiddling with everything from Flint's metal drum to the tarps that were kept to wrap the deceased. With out the incense burning, and the ceaseless shuffling of a sad group of people, the chamber seemed much calmer. She could finally hear the flow of the river passing by, and the soft scuttling of the sea creatures that were moving along the walls above the water.

Finally, she sat down on the cliff, dangling her legs over the edge, and started speaking to the sea creatures. She asked them if they noticed her grandfather drifting by a few days ago, and whether or not he had already made it to the ocean. She wondered how he was doing there. Neither the urchins nor the crabs could answer her back, but that wasn't going to stop a child with an active imagination from having a conversation with all of them. She pretended that they told her stories of him, building houses on the ocean floor and dancing among the eels. The idea that he was enjoying himself, and spending time with every other dead caveling in the ocean, finally put her mind at ease about the whole thing. Eventually, she got tired of talking to herself and made her way back home,  where her parents were sound asleep. She joined them, vowing that she would return to the funeral chamber once again soon, to talk some more.

For a few weeks after that she returned again and again, usually after waking from a bad dream, or early in the morning before her parents were up. She enjoyed passing her time there, making up stories about all the people who now lived in the ocean.

One unfortunate morning she had fallen asleep by the cliff's edge, and was woken by a shocked Flint screeching in fear when they realized they weren't alone. Flint immediately took Moss to her parents, and the three of them gave her a stern lecture about playing near deep water. She thought it entirely unfair that she was in trouble when she hadn't even been playing, but she understood well enough that their main fear was her falling into the water with no one there to help her.

So, a few days later, she made her way back down to the chamber when she was certain Flint would be there too. She told them she missed her friends, and begged them to let her sit in while they worked. Flint was... hesitant to have a child around while they prepared the chamber for a ceremony. But they assured her that if she could convince her parents to let her apprentice under them as a mortician, they would let her hang around as much as she liked. With supervision.

Moss ran back to her parents eagerly and pleaded with them for the apprenticeship. They were clearly surprised enough that Moss was so interested in studying for a career at age eight to begin with, saying nothing of the fact that she was so eager to study under the mortician. They eventually came to an agreement, that if she became Flint's apprentice and didn't like it, she would be free to back out. If she did back out though, it was clearly a sign that she wasn't ready for work, and it would be a few years before they'd allow her any other sort of apprenticeship.

That was good enough for her. She went back to Flint to tell them the good news.

It was a surprise to them that her parents had agreed, and an even bigger surprise that they finally had an apprentice. They shrugged and handed her a broom. Delegation didn't come naturally to them, nor did teaching, but one way or another, they'd figure things out over time.

Moss was fine with whatever work Flint assigned to her, from sweeping to preparing batches of incense. The few hours she would now spend daily down near the river were peaceful, and she was at ease. It was embarrassing to speak out loud to her marine friends in front of her new teacher, so instead she would hum for them the songs that Flint taught her.

Over time, her interest expanded from the chamber itself to everything that happened within. She learned to help Flint during ceremony, grew strong enough to lower the bodies of the deceased into the river without dropping them. She memorized dozens of calming songs, and learned how to speak clearly during a sermon. It turned out to be a job she was well suited for, and after several years by Flint's side, it was hard to imagine herself doing anything else in life.

But early one morning, she woke up on the stone floor of the funeral chamber, with Flint's hands pressed to her aching scalp. Her clothes were soaked in the slick puddle that surrounded her body, and by the smell of it she guessed it was her own blood spilled out around her. Flint rubbed one palm over her forehead, softly pleading with her to stay alive. A soft, golden light glowed on the skin of their palm. She had no idea they were imbued with healing magic, but there it was, apparently being used on her.

She groaned and turned herself over, eliciting a surprised cry of joy from Flint. She tried to push herself up onto her knees, but her palm slid on the wet stone and she found herself face down on the floor, in more pain than she was in just a moment ago. Flint told her to move slowly, that they weren't sure how well their imbuement worked in the first place, and that if Moss was awake they could run for help. There were a few other imbued healers in Brambor, each with more experience than them.

"No, don't leave me down here," she pleaded. There was a cold feeling in her chest. There was a new sensation crawling over her, one that she didn't have words for yet.

She was being watched.

[caveling]

Prologue

  There is no light in the deepest chambers of the Brambor cave system. The air currents that circulate through the rest of the cave don't carry that far down. Whatever creatures sustain themselves in those cold, stagnant, water-carved caverns are pale, gangly things that would shrivel and die if ever exposed to the light and heat of the sun.

  The few hundred people who call Brambor their home were no exception to that. Driven by fear of death at the hands of vengeful deities, they pushed their way deeper and deeper into the caves over the course of generations. Fear of whatever lay in the dark dwindled to nothing over the decades as they traded their sight for other, far more useful senses.