Darkness and Light

 I was born into darkness. This is not unusual amongst my people - we must have had the ability to see, once, as we still have eyes, but they are recessed into our skulls and covered by a thick layer of rubbery skin. We are the Olmish, the people of the cool water caves of Turtle’s Maw, and our lot is darkness and damp. I may not have been the first of our people to gain the gift of light, but certainly I am the only of the Olmish in living memory to have been so blessed, and knowing my people, no one is likely to try to follow my path.

Our people spend the first two years of their lives in the hatchery canals. These controlled streams have been carved out of the living rock of the maw, water-flows diverted from the purest of the underground rivers into carefully screened off, artificial channels where the larva can be easily protected and the water kept pristine quality. Once our lungs and limbs are fully developed, we can crawl onto land and move into the pools of our fathers. Labor is segregated amongst the Olmish, with the menfolk taking care of the babies, tending the duckweed and cave grass crops, and herding the roly polies, porcelain crabs, and water fleas between different algal pools. My people of course understand the concept of light - the men also tend the luminescent mushrooms that provide the light for these crops, but it is only the passing down of the wisdom of the ancient Olmish men that we can tell what varieties provide light and how much, and which parasitize  the crops, and the proper ways of planting to ensure a maximal yield. Our women instead focus on loftier matters, such as guarding the colony, leading our people, contact with the outside world and other races, and of course, the hunting of dangerous beasts, both for meat to supplement that gotten from our livestock, and to ensure our colony remains safe.

It was in my fourth year free of the hatchery canals that my mother did not come back from her hunt. A might hellbender had been found, an ancient dragon of the deep caves. Legends say our people once lived there, but they have since been reclaimed by monsters and beasts, and all our elders say we can do is thin their numbers and stay safe in the colony. “Papa,” I asked, “Why didn’t mama return with the other hunters?”

My dad’s skin was dry, papery. The hunters had been gone a week longer than they should have, and he hadn’t soaked in all that time. “She won’t be coming back, little eft.” His voice was hoarse and crackling instead of its usual mellow, gurgling tones. “She wounded the hellbender, a fatal wound through one of the eyes the fell beast uses to capture the light, but it grabbed her and escaped deep into the depths where the hunters dare not follow. I’m sorry.” He hugged me, and I could feel his skin hungrily absorb my moisture.

“Mama is down in the deep cave living with the hellbenders?” I asked, too young to understand.

“She won’t be coming back.”

I am grateful my father’s pain was too great that day to be more clear. I did not understand why my mother would not be coming back. I was a strong swimmer, a deep diver, and a sturdy, moist young lad who needed close attending to prevent me from wandering off down even the driest of caves, even at that tender age. Had my father’s grief been less, he would have watched me carefully to ensure I did not wander off, but instead, I managed to slip away down the great cavern leading to the depths where the hellbenders dwell.

Luckily for me, the reason the hunters were sent to kill this hellbender was it had been remarkably close to our colony. Had it been further away, I would likely have been lost in one of many winding side caverns, or found my way to the many acid or slime pits where the eater is foul and eats away at your skin until you are bones, or where creatures much smaller but of an equally nasty disposition to the hellbender dwell waiting for young morsels such as myself to blunder into. But I gleefully squelched my way downwards, the scent of my mother still strong in the damp film on the floor and walls, and after only a few hours of waddling on my stubby legs I arrived at a deep, cold pool with a sharp, iron tang in the air and slime surrounding it.

“Mama?” I said inquiringly.

“Ma… ma….” echoed the cavern back, and then I felt a powerful vibration through the rocks.

“Mama.” I replied more confidently.

“Ma… ma…” came the echo.

I knew about echoes, but as young as I was, I was sure she must be okay, and was comforted by the cave helping me in my search. I continued to inquire from time to time, to make sure the cave stayed on task, while I investigated around the pool. A footprint here, a scrap of cloth there, ouch, thats a sharp edge, someone must have dropped their spear… after some time, I determined this had to be the right place, the location of the hunt. In addition to the iron tang that I now know to be blood, I also detected a faint sulfurous odor, which continued along with the scent of my mother into the deep pool.

“Mama.” I said decisively, and the cave agreed. I dived in.

The pool was deep, far deeper than I had ever swum before. As I swam, the ripples from my passage bounced off the walls of the pool, and my sensitive sense of touch along my ribs allowed me to form a mental map of where I was going. The pool was not merely deep, but actually a tunnel that curved, eventually forming a U shape. After almost an hour of swimming, I arrived at the surface of another pool in a separate cavern, where the sulfurous smell and the smell of my mother were much stronger, but the iron tang lingered as well.

“Mama?”

This cave was too small, and no echo replied. Neither did my mother. I felt around carefully while sniffing the air. The first thing I found was soft and slick, like my mother, but far too massive, and smelled strongly of sulfur. I sneezed and nearly fell over. That was not my mother. I carefully continued to smell and feel, and whatever it was that smelled of sulfur was clearly enormous, forming basically an entirely wall of the cavern. Eventually, however, I found a smaller, softer object, which I recognized.

“Mama?” I asked her.

Her skin was very cold, colder than it had ever been before. We are not a hot blooded race like the surface dwellers, but even we warm our bodies above the temperature of our cool waters so we may stay active in the colder reaches of the depths or close to the entrance of the Maw in winter. She was still damp, however, and while her smell was fading and increasingly mixing with iron and sulfur, it was still her, and I could not understand why she would not respond. I kept pawing around and repeating her name, until I felt something else.

It was warm. Very warm. It smelled of sulfur, but also had a strangly sharp, fresh scent underlying that. My mother’s head, sticky and metallic smelling, seemed to be resting on it, a large orb a bit bigger than her head. I carefully lifting her head and slid the orb out from under her, then gave it a tentative lick to help identify it. Blech - I spat a few times, it did not taste good. Suddenly, I became aware of a faint glow in my mind, and for the first time, I saw my own face, a dark gray splotch with faint bumps where eyes should be, a slack mouth with a goofy grimace of confusion, an enormous feathery mane of light blue gills phosphorescing where the light from the mushrooms above struck it. I realized that I was seeing, seeing for the first time, seeing out of eyes that were not my own, but the eyes of the orb, or rather, something in the orb. I felt a warm glow of love emanating from the orb, and then through its eyes saw the enormous body that made up the soft, sulfurous wall. The hellbender lay dead, my mother’s spear shoved through its eye into its brain. Its last strength had been to bring my mother back here, to its nest. I recognized as if the thought was my own that this was my father - no, the father of the orb, of the egg I held right now, of the being whose eyes I could see through.I also saw the body of my mother, crushed in the jaws of the hellbender, and all the other eggs in the nest, squashed in the struggle between our parents and now lifeless.

“Papa.” I said, affirmatively. “I will be your Papa.” I was the first of my people in a millenia to be able to see, and the only person of any kind to have bonded to a hellbender. This was only the start of my journey, but the rest will have to wait for another time.