Chapter 18: Conduit
The first thing I noticed upon entering the Elder's hut was the smell. Exotic. Herbal. Familiar yet distinct, like nothing I had ever come across before, yet already knew by heart. Strange.
I took a good look around.
The second thing I noticed was that the space was so much bigger than I had expected. This was not a house. It was a meeting place altogether, and people were already waiting for us, particularly the edge of a knife.
"D-Dante?!" I said, as the blade was pointed to my neck.
Dante, who looked ready for this, quickly pushed the other man's hand down, the one holding a weapon, gave him a small smile. "We were expected, my friend. Pax is a guest."
The other bigger man who came to greet usâ a sumo wrestler for all I cared, what with his frame and the way he conducted himself, gave Dante a frown. "I thought the girl was still resting?"
"You thought wrong. Let us in."
My heart settled only when the man let us through. But it didn't finish there. More men like him were waiting farther inside, just not as big and tough-looking, though armed in a second with their own knives.
Dante gave them a small smile too. "Is the Elder awake?" he asked.
"Barely," another man replied. All four of them, this one included, wore long-sleeved shirts just like the people who had welcomed me earlier, though with wooden-plated armors strapped on their chests.
I was thinking what kind of sorcery was going on here, when Dante spoke again. "In any case, Pax and I would like to see her."
"No."
Dante scratched at his beard. "I had gotten the Elder's permission."
"Still a no," the biggest man replied. "Listen, just because you're her favorite, doesn't meanâ"
"Gentlemen." A soft voice came from farther inside, barely heard amongst the beginning argument.
The man closest to another door I hadn't noticed before piped up. "Y-Yes, your Ladyship?"
"Send Dante and the girl inside."
My attention was quickly drawn back to the men. All of them looked resignedly at each other after this.
Dante, taking advantage, gave them a slight shrug, then placed his hand on the small of my back, ushered me forward. "If you'll excuse us," he said.
The scent that I had detected before grew stronger as we went deeper into the hut. Because of it, I couldn't enjoy the architecture of the place completely. Instead of focusing on the wooden panels, or the thatching wonder they had done on the ceiling, I was more concerned about how lovely the smell was becoming by the minute, just like food I didn't like at first but then had began to enjoy.
I was drunk with the smell of whatever it was when Dante cut a corner and guided me inside another room. A room where an old woman lay waiting on the forefront. Dante took a bow.
"Your Ladyship, it is I, Dante, and I have brought Pax."
"Send her closer. I want to see the girl."
I was marched inside, meanwhile, taking another sweep of the place.
It was simple; the hut. For an Elder's home, it was stripped of all the lavishness of what you'd normally see in a Palace. Assuming, of course, if they thought of the woman as a Queen. She, too, was clothed in a long-sleeved shirt like the others, though I could see that it could be long as a dress. She was sitting on the floor, bunched with a lot of pillows, looking half-asleep, half-amused at us.
Other than that, her hair was not braided with anythingâ it flowed white and untarnished, too long for my own liking. And a headdress sat on top of her head, kind of like what the natives would wear, except hers was not designed with feathers. They were of leaves.
Dante got on his knee, then signaled for me to do the same, soon as we got in front of her.
"Good evening, Our Lady," Dante said. "This is Pax, the girl I had told you about. And Pax. . ." He turned to me. "This is our Leader, Elder of Conduit, fourth successor of the Divine. She is our Mistress. Our treasure. Her voice is the voice of salvation and all that is true. Say your greetings, or banish in the eternal darkness of ignorance. What say you?"
I blinked at him.
W-what?
Regardless, I took another glance at the woman, who looked like she could be a hundred years old. What was I supposed to say? Dante told me not to use the teenage lingo.
"Err. . ." I gulped. "Salutations, Your Ladyship."
The woman's lips quirked up. "Have you come to take my place?" she asked.
I looked at Dante in wonder, to which he shook his head at her hurriedly. "Unfortunately, that for is another conversation altogether, Our Lady. Pax is just here to offer her courtesy. You know how it is."
And to ask her to find my friends too, I thought.
I elbowed Dante hard.
"That being said, Pax would also want to get our help," he continued. "She is in need of a place to stay, and a few of our men to search for her allies while she's here. She had proven herself worthy by cleansing on the lake."
The woman motioned to him. She didn't even say a few words, yet Dante was on his feet again, going to her, leaning down to listen.
I frowned when they whispered back and forth. It felt just like that time when the students from our school would talk about me behind my back after the stage incident. Though with Dante and the Elder, they were doing it in front of me.
Nevertheless, their conversation had stopped abruptly when someone knocked on the door.
The big man sumo man from earlier was standing there when I turned to look, giving the Lady a respectful bow. "I apologize for intruding like this," he said. "This is about. . . the matter we had been discussing. We're taking it in as we speak."
The Elder whispered a couple more things to Dante before he stood up himself. "That is really good news then." Dante beamed at her. "In this case, Pax and I will take our leave."
The Elder waved him away and motioned to the sumo guy next.
Both menâ Dante and him, gave each other unsettling glances before Dante made it back to me, and smiled. Though I could see in his eyes that something was off. "That takes care of it," he said. "They're going to find your friends."
We spent the last few minutes getting out of the Elder's hut, then zigzagging through the Conduit's dwellings that almost every turn was a mess to me. A puzzle that could never be made. But never mind those, all I could think about was a question. A question that I asked Dante, finally, when he paused to check my reaction.
"So what's the catch?" I said.
"Catch?"
"This." I motioned around. "Me, a stranger, being helped by you."
The edge of his lips curved into a smile, his beard following the motion. "Nothing," Dante said. "As you can see, we're a very tight-knit group here and want to help other people who passed our test."
"That's not the vibe that I got from those men."
"Well. . ." His hand went to his beard. "The guards think highly of themselves. Uh-uh-uh." Dante wiggled a finger to me when I was about to speak. "No more questions until after you'd gotten some decent sleep. I know it's still early, and I know that you're dying to know more about this place, but one step at a time. And besides, you want to get out of those clothes, surely?"
My eyes took a dip down. I was still dripping wet.
Dante took that as a sign to gesture upward, where I could see the path that would lead us back towards the waterfall. If I was not mistaken.
"After you," he said.
There were so many theories running in my head by the time we'd made it back to the tent from before. Dante had immediately slipped away with an excuse of scoring clothes for me, so I had to be patient once more, something I was struggling with throughout meeting him.
Nevertheless, he came back with a change of outfit for me, and a porridge-like thingy served on a clay pot. A way to appease me, probably. "Dinner is served," he said, bringing everything down, including the clothes.
"Thanks. . ."
Dante began to spread down what looked to be the same outfit as his and everyone else's, and I was mortified to see that even an underwear was there along with the lot.
"Sorry," he murmured, gesturing, "but those ones are already used."
"Uhm. . ."
He grinned. "Just kidding." Dante stood up and and carefully took a step back, trying not to disturb anything in the tent, including the lamp that he had suspended on the ceiling for the night. "Well," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Wait."
I didn't care anymore if he was going to leave me like this. I didn't care if all the questions inside my head were left answered until tomorrow. But I had to make sure.
"My friends. . ."
"Yes?"
"Will your people promise to look for them as soon as possible? For Audra, especially?"
Understanding flashed on Dante's face. "Of course," he assured. "Sleep tight, little one. I'll try to find her for you."
I was ashamed to say that I'd fallen asleep soon after that. I was ashamed of myself that I didn't even spend one minute thinking about the other's safety. I was so exhausted that I had drifted off to a deep, restful sleep. I was ashamed.
Yet the moment the sun had peaked into the sky, or even a few minutes before that, I was up again and ready.
Beads of my broken bracelet in my new pocket, determination on my face, I was more than prepared to search for Dante to make sure that they'd find Audra and Hanz, when I opened the tent flap to see someone already standing there.
A tanned female the same age as me, smiled broadly as soon as she caught sight of my face. "Hi!" she said.
"Hi?"
The girl took my hand without another word, then began to drag me to someplace I wasn't prepared, so much so that I had to stop her.
"W-wait!"
"Yeah?"
She had a really friendly smileâ I saw as soon as she turned. Her eyes were gray, though not as disarming as Audra's. Then again, Audra was one of a kind.
"Who. . . Who are you?" I asked.
"She's Maya," someone else answered for her. Someone appearing from behind a boulder nearby. Someone who had darker skin, and had the gaze of a knife. "And I'm Mart."
"And we. . ." Maya stepped back. "Are your co-workers for the day. Dante sent us here. He also told us your name."
"Oh. . ." My eyes automatically began to skim for the man, yet he wasn't there. I couldn't even see his shadow. Furthermore, Maya, who'd looked like she had taken one too many sugar for the day jumped up and down.
"He's not available right now," she said. "Said he's going to look for your friends?"
"What time did he leave?" I asked.
"Last night." It was Mart who answered, running a hand through her curly hair. "Now can we please go to the farm? I don't want to waste my time standing here and talking."
Great. Another potential Neil in the making. Maya, who was only half-listening, began to clap her hands enthusiastically.
"Let's go," she said.
Dante was out there searching for my friends. I kept telling myself that as we walked back to the dwellings and all of its oddity. Soon, all of those people would find Audra and Hanz. Soon, none of what I did here would even matter.
Yet as we entered a couple of path's that I wasn't familiar with, then ended in a cave that stretched on and on, it was hard to reach the finishâ I turned to Maya and Mart, suddenly curious of what they wanted me to do.
"There's a farm," I said, sounding astonished.
"Yes, I did mention that earlier," Mart replied.
Maya was more willing than the other girl, gesturing towards the plants just a few steps from us. "This," she said, "is the most important part of Conduit. You can call it our tribe's treasure, other than our wise Elder."
My gaze flitted back to the stretch. Shrubs upon shrubs were laid out on the ground, which should had been impossible under other circumstances. I mean, technically, we were still inside a cave, weren't we? How could there be a farm?
"It's a magical place," Maya explained. "So magical, in fact, that you'd be surprised that Conduit is buried within a deep passage. A paradise like this tucked for special people to find."
"Maya. . ." Mart said sharply.
The tanned girl just shrugged at the other one. "What's the deal?" Maya asked. "If Dante and the others didn't want Pax to find out, then why would they place her for duty here?"
Still, Mart gave Maya and me a glare. "That is not your place to question," she said.
"Quit talking about that when you're the one who likes to question things," Maya remarked.
I turned from one girl to another. Alright. There was definitely drama here.
But I didn't want to be caught up in that. Neither did I want to be the source of their argument, so I continued farther in this new and foreign cave. Staring at the ceiling, I saw that the beams of lights were beginning to shine through, touching my face; they was warm.
"Don't worry about her," Maya said lightly behind me, already catching up. "Dante had placed you here for a reason, I know."
"Yeah?" I pointed to the shrubs either way. There was something else I wanted to know. "You said that this is your treasure, right? Aside from your Elder? How come?"
Maya, at that, walked forward then dropped to a shrub, cradling the edge of a leaf like it was a golden find. Meanwhile, all I could see was a weed, really. They didn't even have flowers or something that special for me to look at. What was the deal?
Maya shook her head at me. "These sages have a lot of properties in them," she said. "They might look ordinary, but they do a lot of special things. And they only, miraculously, grow here."
"In this very, very special place." Mart added sarcastically from behind us.
It was Maya's turn to glare at her. "Don't say that," she scolded. "You, of all people, should know that living here is a privilege, and so is taking care of these sages. Surface-dwellers would kill us for them any time."
I bit my lip at that. Was that why they were too hush-hush about this place?
Was that why Dante was so shady with things?
Once again, I looked from one girl to the other. Maya, with her tanned skin. Mart, with her dark, prettier one. I barely knew them at all. Hell, I had only met them a few minutes ago. But as the wind blew, taking it with the strange scent that I had inhaled just yesterday from the Elder's hut, but a million times more potent, it began to dawn on me that there was something more to these people, this place. And I didn't know if I wanted to stick around to find out.