Chapter 55:

  Closing Perspectives (5 of 5)

  Home observed the Deep beneath the ground through its many points of awareness, checking each corridor and chamber like a worrisome parent who couldn’t remember if the door had been latched closed in the middle of the night.

  Home cared for its family.

  The deep kin were hardy, loyal, and deeply loving of one another. They lived close to the stone, generation after generation, their fates intertwined.

  Home knew all within its domain. It recognized them by their voices, their patterns, their habits, and by their potential.

  Home loved its family.

  They had dwelled in the deep below the dungeon for many generations. It had not always been this way. There was a time when the deep kin were known by a different name, but that identity had been lost.

  The Rayleighans had come. The kin had fought. Then, after many years of bloody war, they chose to preserve what they could, despite the losses they bore.

  It was here that they had sought shelter.

  It was here that they found Home.

  Home spent much of its time observing outsiders as they searched for treasure and beasts within the old mines. They were a greedy sort, but this had been within the boundaries of the treaty, so long as they did not venture too deep.

  The kin could remain at peace within the Deep, while the surface folk were free to visit the dungeon and fight the many creatures drawn to the potential held within Home itself.

  It created an equilibrium.

  Over time, the monsters had become a layer of security more than a threat, while the outsiders who probed the depths culled any beasts that grew too powerful and posed a risk to the delicate ecosystem that had been established.

  There had been peace for many, many cycles.

  Home loved peace.

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  One of Home’s crystals vibrated with sudden urgency, pulling its awareness away from the outer tunnels and into the chief’s dwelling, where its bound kin, the one who had inherited Home many years ago, now stirred.

  Home settled into quiet observation as Strom Ablehand rose from his bed. He coughed harshly, the sound echoing against stone, just as his son, Weln, entered the carved abode.

  Strom had always been considerate of Home. He had spent much of his life communing with it, leaning upon its love of peace as a guiding line as he walked his path.

  Home loved Strom.

  “Father, how much longer will you wait?” Weln snapped irritably. “The emissary offers us a chance. Why do you refuse to take it?”

  Strom did not reply immediately. Instead, he sat up against the stone frame of his bed and let out another ragged cough. The old dwarf was walking his last steps, yet his love for his people urged him to hold on a little longer.

  “My son,” he rasped softly, “please… be at peace, and bring your father a glass of eld.”

  Home watched the back of the frustrated youth, who had only just entered his hundreth cycle. He prepared his father a glass of eld, then handed it to him with shaking hands as Strom still lay in bed.

  “Father, the expeditions are ready to return and give word of our cooperation,” he said. “Please, consider this chance. We have a real opportunity to move beyond the boundaries of our prison… and return to the land above. To retake our birthright. What is rightfully ours!”

  Strom drank slowly as he considered the words of his son.

  “Weln,” he said softly, “have you forgotten our history already? Did I not teach it to you myself? I was only a boy when our people were driven into this place, and I remember the loss of so many as if it were yesterday.”

  He coughed once, harsh and wet, then forced himself to breathe through it.

  “Please, my son… do not pursue the emissary’s offer. He is not one to be trusted. Vengeance may taste sweet as the eld you’ve given me, but it is a bitter poison going down.”

  The youth straightened his back and stared down at his father with empty eyes.

  “I knew you would say that,” he said quietly. “When I was a boy, I thought you were as immovable and strong as the mountains above us. Yet, now I see the truth.”

  He leaned forward, voice low and sharp.

  “You’re just a scared old man… one who has given up on the wellbeing of his people.”

  Strom reached out with gentle hands toward his son, and Home watched as the Weln turned away, presenting his back to his father as if the act itself could sever the bond between them.

  “I love you, Father,” he said without any warmth. “And I’m sorry for what I have to do.”

  Strom tried to speak, but his words were suddenly caught in his throat. He coughed again, harder this time, the sound scraping through the carved stone chamber.

  When he drew his hands back, they were slick and shaking.

  Dark blood coated his palm, gathered in the creases of his fingers, and began to drip in slow, heavy beads onto the bedding below.

  “Son…” Strom rasped, red already staining his lips. “What have you done?”

  Weln turned to look upon his father.

  His mountain. His Home.

  “What I must.”

  Home’s awareness faded as the bond broke.

  Time passed, and the grief of loss settled deep within it at Strom’s passing.

  Then… contact.

  A presence. Weln’s presence.

  Home did not love Weln.

  Yet despite its attempts to resist, something… wrong forced the connection. The bond snapped into place like a shackle.

  And with it came an unfamiliar voice, threaded with an insatiable hunger.

  You belong to me now.