Underground

Chapter Five

It is required to listen to this song in the background while reading this post. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them. Sorry.

The following story and illustration were inspired by the 2023 Folktale Week Prompts. At the time, I only got as far as writing a rough version of the story below and doing a couple of thumbnail sketches before other paid projects came up. After rediscovering the story in a drawer under a mountain of paper, I wanted to resurrect it and see what could be made out of this little exercise. This is 5 of 7. I hope you enjoy reading this little chapter!

Click to find Chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4 (time lapse at the end!)

Chapter 5: Underground

When Felix opened his eyes, it was pitch black. He lifted a hand to his face. Had he opened his eyes? He heard something rustle beside him and then a wheedling, whiny sort of voice crooned above his head.

“Ah! It is awake! Grand! It is time to make us fire, man-ling!”

Felix sat up. He tried in vain to see some hint of whatever it was that was speaking to him. It felt like there was a cold dirt floor under his hand and the air smelled like worms and mold. There was also some other musky scent he could not name. Where was he?

“I can’t see- who’s there?” he asked in a shaky voice.

“‘Tis the Lords of the forest speaking to you! Now do as we bid and make fire!”

Felix slowly climbed to his knees and began to grope blindly around him. “I can’t- I don’t have anything to make fire with!” he complained.

“Tell us what thou needs and my servants shall fetch it for thee!” the voice proclaimed.

“Uh…” Felix gaped, trying to remember what his father has shown him just a few months before. “I need dry kindling, like pine needles and moss and twigs, and some dry wood to burn and…a flint-stone and steel blade to strike it.” Felix hoped that this would cause the “Lords” to leave him long enough to find his way into some other source of light, some way to understand his situation.

“Go and seek, my lord-lings!” the speaker commanded and all around him Felix heard rustling. He felt something soft and something prickly brush against him as a crowd of “lord-lings” rushed past him.

Felix slowly climbed to his feet and began shuffling around with his arms outstretched. He almost immediately ran into what felt like a wall of dirt and stone and fell back. A high pitched whinny of laughter sounded beside him. So, he was not alone after all.

“Where is this?” Felix asked.

“The Hall of the Forest Lords, of course. Here we rule the forest, telling each creature the laws it must obey.”

“Is that so?” asked Felix. “You must be very great lords then, to command such power.”

“Oh yes, we have learned the ways of all creatures, save man. But now that you are here, we will learn your secrets as well!”

“How is that?” Felix asked cautiously. A prickle of fear raced up his spine. “You speak like a man, are you not a man?”

“Not yet, man-ling, but soon! We have waited for the secret of fire and then our transformations will be complete. Then, no more will we be hunted by man- we will become the hunters!”

Felix shivered. What was he speaking to? “A-and if I don’t give you the secret of fire?” he braved, fearing at any second something with terrible teeth and claws would come screeching out to the dark to devour him. He scrabbled uselessly in the dirt, fearing he was wandering in circles, like a helpless rabbit. The voice loomed closer.

“Well,” it whispered menacingly into his ear, “if thou holds thy secret close to thy breast, then thee shall find thyself dinner, like the rest of the man-lings who have refused us!”

Felix almost cried at this, but stopped himself and merely trembled. “And if I do show you fire?”

“Ah,” said the voice, sounding much calmer and more smug, “we shan’t have any other use for you, of course, so the stew pot shall suffice! And oh, what a delicious stew it shall be! No more cold, raw meat for The Lords of the Forest!” It sounded as if the voice was licking its lips.

Felix, shaking all over now, ventured, “How did you come upon the secrets of man, oh lord?”

“Well,” said the voice, “I see no harm in telling thee. My teacher, The Great Witch of the Birches, found me one winter night trying to suckle from my poor, dead mother. She took me in and raised me from a kit. Since she had no other kits of her own, she told me her secrets and taught me speech and secret spells. But she was terribly old and before she could teach me the ways of man and fire, she passed. I left her place and found others like me, hunted and scared, and taught them what I knew. But we suffered, for the men of the villages brought dogs and sharp blades to hurt us. So I vowed to become one of them and have my revenge. The Witch had taught me a charm to alter the appearance of any living creature. My lords and I donned our disguises, but we were discovered by certain gaps in our skill sets, like being able to make or handle fire. We were chased away each time and nearly killed. In the last village, we discovered that the young ones were less bloodthirsty and so we devised a new plan to lure the man-lings here so that they could teach us. We have learned many things this way, but fire seems to elude us.

The voice moved rapidly around Felix, screeching away in a mocking, sing-song voice, “Take the last man-ling, for instance. All it did was cry ‘Felix, Felix! I want to go home!’”

Felix sat bolt upright. Micha!?

“This last man-ling you found,” Felix asked, trying to not sound too eager, “what did you do with it?”

“Same as will be done to you, my morsel!” The voice chuckled, then said no more. The room filled once again with the rustling of the others returning.

“Ah!” My Lords! Give the man-ling what it asked for and gather ‘round! Observe closely!”

Felix felt hard objects dropped into his lap. He sat shaking, too scared to move. How would he get out of this situation? Was it truly Micha the voice had spoken of? Could it be that Micha had already been…eaten!?

A stab of terrible pain and fury pierced Felix’s breast then, but he could do nothing without light. Felix groped at the objects dumped in his lap. He felt what might be a blade, and he thought of using it. But without light… he felt a stone, and something that might have been tinder near his knee. It was softer and finer than any pile of tinder he had ever felt before. But he wanted no more hesitation. He raised the stone and the blade and struck the two together. Sparks shot out. For just a tiny fragment of a moment Felix caught sight of pointed ears and a strange snout, staring at him in the dark.

“What is this!?” The voice screeched. “This is no fire!”

“Wait!” Felix cried, “You must be patient, oh lord!” Felix hurriedly struck the stone again and again. At the third strike, a spark caught. Felix bent and blew, gently. It grew cautiously, then eagerly, devouring the bed of tinder. It was so strange. It smelled more like burning hair than twigs or needles. The fire grew enough to illuminate the figures faintly.

Now Felix could see strange, paw-like hands that looked as if they had been dipped in ink, and coats like rushes. He blew on the fire once more, intending to add more twigs, when suddenly there was a terrible cry.

“MY TAIL! MY TAIL!”

Felix could see now that the voice belonged to a fox wearing a strange mask to resemble a crude human face.

The creature leapt into the air, screeching, writhing this way and that. The wind from its convulsions fed the flames which grew brighter and hotter and soon caught the coat of dry rushes. The other fox people, terrified, unsure of what to do, tried to blow out the flames by flapping their own cloaks.

“IT’S BITING! IT’S BITING!” cried the fiery one. It dropped to all fours and raced around the room, which Felix could see now was some kind of underground cave. Roots hung down from the ceiling.

The others, unsure, gave chase. Their masks and cloaks fell to the ground and their whiskers caught the flames as they, as one, raced yipping and crying out of the cavern until Felix was left alone in the dark once more.

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