TGC 04 In which we navigate the mines

We stopped. I don’t know when. I didn’t know how long we’d been moving. I’d walked; I’d cried; I’d dragged at mother; I’d been dragged by mother; I’d been carried by mother. Through the caves, we’d travelled, coughing, retching, sneezing, crying until finally we stopped – or more accurately collapsed in a heap. Alone, in the depths of the mine we lay in a heap. My legs were aching; my arms were aching; my soul was aching. It was so dark that I could see nothing; I held my hand right in front of my eyes to check. Nothing. Pitch black. I could feel my mother though – feel her shaking, her chest heaving as she cried silent sobs. What had I done? This was all because of me. Because I had fallen, Father Leiter, Brother Dezent and Sister Gutig were gone – all gone – never to return. If I had been stronger, they’d still have been here, helping to guide us through these mines. These mines that had seemed so illicitly exciting but were now just a threatening labyrinth of hidden menace. I shivered. It was all my fault.

I crawled over to mother. “I’m sorry mother,” I whispered as I wrapped my arms around her.

I felt her tighten as I spoke, she was furious. She blamed me – quite rightly – for what had happened to Father Leiter, Brother Dezent and Sister Gutig. I started crying. It was all my fault. I felt her push my arms from me and I cried harder still. She really did blame me. My own mother. But how could I complain. I had cost three goblins their lives. Three goblins who had done nothing but protect mother and I. I felt mother pull me in front of her. Unable to see her face, I pictured it: twisted into a mask of fury and contempt. I screwed up my face in anticipation of the stinging slap that I knew was surely coming. She pulled me close – pulled my cheek against hers. Her arms wrapped tightly around me – holding me close.

“You,” she choked, forcing her words through clenched teeth. She must have been furious with me. I was sure. How could she not be? “You,” she repeated, “have nothing to apologise for. Nothing. Do you hear me?” She was shouting now. I could feel the anger emanating from her. It came bursting out of her in hot pulses.

“But I fell,” I cried. “If I hadn’t fallen, they’d still be here. Father Lei-”

“You stop that this instant!” snapped Mother. “You have no responsibility for what happened. It was greed that sent us into that mine - the greed of the elves. And it was cruelty and barbarity that sent the shlangunds in after us – the cruelty and barbarity of the elves. The moment they sent those shlangunds in, Father Leiter knew he would never be leaving those mines. He had to do what he did. He had to – to protect us all. You heard what he said: ‘It’s a fine thing we’re doing. The best of things. Make no mistake.’”

I continued to cry and sob and shake and all the while mother held me. I loved her for that. For a moment, I forgot that I was down a mine, but rather thought I’d awoken at home in the middle of the night and had followed the sparkling of pixie dust along the wall to my parents room and she was just comforting me in the confines of our own home as she had done hundreds of times before. Then thinking of pixie dust that used to line the walls of our home, I remembered the walls of the tunnel illuminating as I screamed.

“Mother,” I sniffed. “When the shlangunds were coming, I screamed and the whole tunnel suddenly lit up.”

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