“Alie!” Kaila hurried over and helped him up, looking at the wound on his arm with a horrified expression.

He didn’t like the pain and couldn’t stop himself from shedding a few tears, but he forced control over himself out of embarrassment. Angrily, he grabbed at the red stone and yanked with all his might. Surprise stole away his balance when the stone was effortlessly detached from the rest of the flower, unlike during his first attempts. He fell down yet again as a result of having put in too much force. He hurried back onto his feet, doing his best to show Kaila that a little pain was no big deal. Still, he’d rarely seen blood, and he’d never bled this much before. The scarlet trail reached all the way down to his wrist from his upper arm, small droplets trickling over his skin and onto the stone that he held in a firm grip.

While distractedly licking at his injury to see if blood tasted different than water, the light from the stone suddenly vanished as a final tingle crawled up his arm. It abruptly became hard to breathe, and Alistar fell to the ground in a fit of coughing.

He lost himself for a minute, his vision growing dizzyingly dark. This was a different and somewhat more worrisome sort of dark than even the darkness that currently marooned them within the cramped little cave. Just when he thought that the light from the lantern had gone out and that they were trapped in the darkness of the lower mines, his vision suddenly returned.

Kaila was crying again, sitting at his side with a face painted over with worry. She was always crying, so much so that there were permanent tearstains trailing through the usual mask of dirt that covered her face. Alistar knew deep down that most of the times that she cried were because of him, and that he was the reason why she was always getting into trouble with her parents. It was also his fault that they always found themselves in scary, desolate places within the abandoned sections of the mines. After thinking on it for a few moments, he thought about apologizing to her, but he didn’t know what to say, so he kept quiet.

Brushing aside his confusion, Alistar told Kaila that he was fine and they both got to their feet. The rest of the flower remained as if it had never been touched. He tried plucking at it again before they left, and grew happy when he was met with no resistance. Maybe he could put it back together before giving it to his mother. For now, he tucked the stone into the little pocket his father had fashioned into the ragged cloth that covered his body, the scaly stem of the flower grasped tightly in his right hand. Finally having use for the pocket, his father’s words filled his mind. Every man should have a place to hide something special, don’t you think, Alistar?

Fleeing the darkness, they quickly picked their way out of the cave and came back out into the tunnel. They agreed to keep what they’d found a secret, and, thinking of his parents, Alistar led Kaila back the way they had come. He tugged her along after him, encouraging her with words of excitement about their chance discovery.

Kaila always made him hold her hand whenever they strayed past the active mine limits, and grew upset if he let go before they returned to the lit tunnels. She had a very hard time retaining her composure when in the lower levels. Perhaps it was because the distant corridors never seemed to change, always dark and full of dust, and silent as a sleeping mind. The lower regions certainly lacked the human presence of the upper levels, where wooden support beams decorated the walls and ceilings where men had dug into the earth in an effort to connect to the ancient tunnels. Access to the lower levels was permanently forbidden, even for the guards. Yet Kaila still tagged along every time he asked her for company, and tried her best to be brave whenever they adventured around in the cool darkness.

Although Kaila’s hand was cold, Alistar’s mind was focused on the strain on his other arm as he dragged the heavy lantern along at his side. Despite the bitter temperature, he felt a strange warmth swimming throughout his body, warmth that felt as if it were a combination of the heat from the cook fires where he ate his daily meals, and the reassuring coziness of his mother’s embrace. It was a good feeling.

The two arrived at a broad, open shaft and worked together to climb up an unreliable ladder of decaying wood, juggling the lantern in turns. Relief washed over them as they finished their ascent, as they had safely arrived back at the upper levels. Although it had taken them nearly an hour to return, any newcomer would have wound up lost, possibly for days, perhaps forever. But Alistar and Kaila knew this area better than anybody, for they had played in these tunnels ever since they were able to run off on their own.

As a whole, the manmade tunnels of the upper mines were narrower than the ancient ones below. Despite spending most of his time in the restricted area, Alistar felt more at home when surrounded by the wooden support beams and the empty pockets of rock that once housed countless crystals. The average tunnel in the upper sections was maybe five paces across, while some in the lower areas were many times as wide.

Some tunnels were used to deposit waste and some to excrete it, while many were simply barren and abandoned. Still, a good number were lit despite their continuous vacancy, as plenty guards preferred to spend their breaks away from the crowds of unwashed people that filled the Resident Cavern. Many sections of the upper mines were off limits as well, and these were the areas that Alistar and Kaila preferred to explore whenever they didn’t opt to descend to the lower levels.

After nearly two hours of walking, Alistar and Kaila rounded a corner and could finally see the warm light of the lanterns that marked the joining of the Long Tunnel. The Long Tunnel was a lot larger than any of the other ones, and it connected all of the major tunnels in the upper levels of the mines. It was the only ancient tunnel in the upper areas, and served as the backbone of the mines. After returning their lantern to a random peg on the wall, they turned right and continued onward, heading toward a large opening that led into the Resident Cavern.

The Resident Cavern was where everyone spent their time when they weren’t searching for the pretty rocks that Alistar’s parents called crystals. Walking out of the Long Tunnel, Alistar’s eyes were met with a vast open space that seemed larger than all of the tunnels combined.

Apparently, many generations ago the miners of the time had tunnelled into a massive area of open space that lay deep beneath Mt. Barosh, and discovered high deposits of crystals in the area. In the years that followed, a massive mine was created with the Resident Cavern as its heart. It was believed that this giant chamber had once been a nesting ground for whatever creatures had dug out the ancient tunnels below. If Alistar ran with everything he had, then it would surely take him a few minutes to reach the far side, and he took pride in his running ability. He forgot what came after the hundreds, but he knew that many hundreds of people slept here after the ringing of the work bells, only to be awoken six hours later by the grumbling roars of three brass gongs. People worked in shifts, so if you were awoken by the work bell then you knew to go back to sleep, just as the workers knew to ignore the sound of the gongs while labouring in the tunnels.

The cavern was vaguely rounded, with hundreds of lanterns hanging all along the walls. On the far end sat the barracks where the guards slept, three blocky buildings made of crude wood built to accommodate fifty men each. It would take at least five of those barracks sitting one on top of the other in order to reach the cavern’s ceiling. The buildings were fenced off with jagged pieces of wood, a structure Alistar’s uncle called a palisade. Opposing the barracks and making up almost half of the Resident Cavern were hundreds of rows of dirty blankets and loose piles of weathered straw, with dozens of living spaces in each of the rows. Each space was marked off with a painted rock, which served as a marker to show who resided where. Aside from the rocks, each spot was identical.

No matter how scared he and Kaila became whenever they wandered off, the instant that they stepped into the warm glow of the familiar string of lanterns, they knew that they were safe. Such a feeling washed over them just then, along with the husky smells and hushed sounds that had raised them. Few in the cavern ever spoke, but a low buzz of conversation was easily carried throughout the space. The main shift was off in the tunnels, so there weren’t many people there at the moment. At this time of day, the guards did most of the conversing.

Everybody was assigned to a group and in that group they ate, slept, and worked together. Different groups did different things at different times. Some might be working to clean out the waste caves, while others might be carrying away the debris that piled up as others mined for crystals. As usual, there were only a handful of groups within the cavern, idling or at rest. Alistar’s and Kaila’s families were still working at their designated work posts.

Excited at the thought of surprising his mother, Alistar grabbed hold of Kaila’s arm with his free hand and led the way across the cavern, toward another exit into the Long Tunnel. There were several pathways in the Resident Cavern that led to different sections of the Long Tunnel, and this one led to a branch of tunnels that had only recently been made available. After hurrying through the many people that filled this section, they found the correct tunnel and walked along a long line of people who were hard at work amidst the poor lighting of the wall-fixed lanterns. The sounds of metal striking rock echoed up and down the line, a sound Alistar knew well. The sharp clanking filled his ears and set him at ease.

The lanterns here were dimmer than the ones in the Resident Cavern, set to emit just enough light to see by, while keeping it dark enough for the glow of the embedded gemstones to reveal their locations. Large islands of crude sediment were scattered throughout the tunnel, large patches also hanging from the walls in certain places. The long line of people was paralleled by a contrasting line of their mirroring shadows, the animated darkness given life by the lanterns at their backs. Aside from those mining directly, a constant flow of people carried the excess debris out of the tunnel, with heavy wooden boxes fastened tightly to their backs. These people were known to Alistar as Carriers.

Everyone was always busy in the mines, but they never looked happy. Alistar often wondered why that was. He always grew bored when there was nothing to do. At least they had a task to complete.

After a few minutes of picking their way through the throng of Carriers, they spotted their families up ahead, working in close proximity to each other as usual. Kaila’s parents and Alistar’s parents were friends, and for some reason the guards didn’t seem to mind that they were constantly working together even when others were prohibited from leaving their assigned work areas. Well, some guards seemed to mind, but the guards were constantly recycled throughout the various work stations, so most of the time their families worked alongside each other without any trouble.

Upon seeing the two of them, some of the recognizable guards exchanged small pieces of metal called coins. This happened every time the two of them returned from their adventures. Alistar never understood the point of coins. You couldn’t eat them and you couldn’t wear them, and no one aside from the guards seemed to have any. Whenever he asked about the purpose of coins, his family would frown and tell him that he was still young, and that he would learn about them as he grew older. They responded in that fashion to many of his questions. He eventually accepted the fact that he was too young to understand and stopped asking about them.

“Alistar!” someone yelled. It was his father. He didn’t look pleased. “Come here, now!”

Kaila’s parents also called her over, mirroring his father’s mood. They exchanged frowns and said their goodbyes as they each headed toward their families to receive a scolding. Alistar hadn’t taken ten steps when a burly man with a pickaxe in hand spat at him in passing. He was expecting it, of course, as he was spat at by the same man whenever he drew too close to him, so it was easy to avoid. The man snickered through the ugly scar that separated his face down the middle, looking down his indented nose at Alistar with contempt. Something seemed to have happened between the man and his father in the past which made it so that they didn’t get along. The man harassed Alistar whenever the chance presented itself. As his father constantly reminded him to do, he hurried away from the miner and came to a stop where his parents were working. His father and the man were sharing a fierce glare.

“Oi!” One of the guards smacked the butt of his spear into the ground. His father and the man resumed working. Alistar recognized the guard as one he wasn’t fond of, and was surprised that his family and Kaila’s family were working side by side despite his presence.

Aside from the dozen or so men at the start of the line, there were only a handful of guards spread thin along its breadth. All of them had swords at their hips and spears in hand, their bodies covered in dull chainmail beneath a surcoat of deep scarlet. It was very cool in Alistar’s opinion. He had already decided that when he grew up, he would choose to be a guard instead of a miner.

“Alistar,” his father hissed through his teeth, swinging his pickaxe tiredly. He was angry. Alistar knew he would be in for it once the work bells sounded. “How many times have I told you not to run off on your own? It seems like each day is a repeat of the last, as if I’ve never told you off in the first place!”