Chương 33: Chapter 30 — The Barrow Farm

⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ Current XP: 1, 100 / 10, 000 They left for Barrow Farm in the morning. Fenwick had spent the previous evening briefing them on everything — the cave, the cage, the letters on Nibbles' desk, the shape on the map. Max had nodded once and said nothing further, which Fenwick had come to understand meant the information had been filed and was being processed. Whatever Max couldn't act on yet, he held quietly until he could. Sindy had been less economical.

He had apologized four times before she stopped responding to the apology and simply moved on to the next question, which was its own kind of forgiveness. He had gone to sleep still uncertain whether he was forgiven or simply tabled. The screen had been reading to Max long after Fenwick closed his eyes. It was fine. Probably. Barrow Farm sat at the eastern edge of the Thornwood, which meant it had always been the kind of place where things came out of the trees at night.

The farmer, a stout bull named Corvel who had inherited the land from his father and his father's father before him, had built his fences accordingly. High. Reinforced. The guild that secured the Thornwood had paid the Order for a low-grade electrical spell on the fence. Not enough to kill the livestock, but sure enough to scare anything that touched it unprepared. The cknolls had gone through them anyway.

Fenwick stood at the treeline with Max while Corvel pointed at the damage and described three nights of losses in the specific, tired way of someone who had stopped being surprised and started being resigned. The aphid sheds along the south wall had been hit hardest. Long, low buildings, carefully ventilated but shaded, the interior kept dim and quiet — aphids produced best when undisturbed.

"You know how we get the sweets from them?" said Corvel. He was already moving toward the shed door.

"I'm familiar with the product," said Fenwick.

"The harvest sweets, the distillery contracts—""No, no." Corvel waved this off.

"I mean, do you know how. The actual how."

"I don't think that's—""Come here." Fenwick came. He had found, in his experience, that farmers said come here in a tone that left no room for the alternative. The shed was dim and warm, the quiet broken only by the soft movement of barrel-shaped bodies drifting in the half-light. Corvel approached the nearest aphid — white with black spots, four feet of placid domestication — and began stroking it with both hands in long, practiced movements.

"See, ya got to make sure they are comfortable," said Corvel.

"I like to have one of the kids play a nice soothing song for them. Then you go up and softly caress them, whispering sweet words."

"I see," said Fenwick, in the tone of someone who did not wish to see more but understood it was coming.

"Whose the good Bessy?" Corvel whispered huskily to the aphid.

"You want to make me some sweet, sweet essence, oh baby, that is the way to do it." Fenwick stood very still. His palms got a bit sweaty. He was unsure if this was something he should be seeing or if this was better done in private.

"Here, right at the back end," said Corvel, "you will see a sweet bubble forming. Made from the natural sugars they eat as they graze. We call it bubbling." He looked at Fenwick with the quiet pride of a craftsman.

"Confectioners in Thornwall pay very well for a good bubble." A bubble formed, luminous and trembling.

"There she is," said Corvel softly. Fenwick looked at the bubble and at Corvel. He then discreetly adjusted his robes.

"Remarkable," he said, in the tone of someone who meant it in a complicated way. Max, standing at the ventilation slats, had found the aphids and watched Fenwick and Corvel's demonstration. He was looking at them through the gaps, his new perception cataloging the shed with the same attention it brought to everything. One had drifted close to the slats — barrel-shaped, white with black spots. Max watched it. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Bug," Max whispered, looking a bit hungry. We can't eat these bugs. We are here to help bugs. Sindy posted the words on the screen. As she said them. Max's brow furrowed as he digested this information.

"Help bugs. No eat." Sindy's words again on the screen. They belong to him. Not food. Work. Max looked at the aphid once more. Something moved behind the dark eyes — a distinction being filed. Then he looked away and waited quietly for Fenwick to return. Fenwick continued talking to Corvel.

"There's a cave," said Fenwick.

"Nearby." Corvel pointed northeast.

"Half mile. Old place. My father boarded it up thirty years ago." Fenwick nodded. He did not say what he was thinking, which was that boarding up a cave was the kind of solution that worked until it didn't, and that it had clearly stopped working some time ago.

"We'll clear it," he said. Corvel looked past him at Max, standing in the shadow of the oaks.

"And the hero," said Corvel.

"Is he—""With me," said Fenwick.

"Yes." Fenwick climbed down from the harness a hundred yards from the cave.

"I want to walk it," he said. Max looked at him. He crouched down to let Fenwick off, which he did now without being asked, the body understanding the request before the words finished arriving. Fenwick walked. The trail to the cave had been used recently. Not by one thing — by many things, over several days, the ground pressed down in the uneven way of regular foot traffic rather than a single passage. He crouched at a patch of softer earth and looked at the impressions without touching them. Not just cknoll.

Too heavy, too wide, the stride length wrong. Something that moved deliberately and in numbers. He stood and kept walking. The boards were still at the entrance. Three of them, heavy oak, nailed across the opening thirty years ago by someone who had considered the problem solved. They had been pulled away from one side — not broken, pulled, the nails drawn out one by one with deliberate effort — and leaned neatly against the rock face beside the entrance. Fenwick crouched and looked at the nail holes in the wood.

Clean extraction. Whatever had done this had understood the mechanism. Cknolls didn't pull nails. He had established that at Cutty Sark. Whatever was using this cave had established its own category. He stood. He looked at the entrance for a moment longer than was comfortable. Then he walked back to Max and climbed into the harness.

"Ceiling first," he said.

"Always." Max looked up at the cave ceiling. Then he moved inside. The first chamber was wider than Fenwick had expected. Eight cknolls. Ceiling, walls, one crouched behind a rock formation that fooled nobody. They spread when Max entered, the instinctive coordination of creatures that had worked together, the independent eyes tracking two directions simultaneously. Max moved. Four of them broke for the deeper tunnel and stopped.

They stood at the entrance, looking back at Max, then down the tunnel, then back at Max. Something in the tunnel was more frightening than what was in the room. They turned back. That was the wrong decision. Combat Arts did its work. Eight cknolls, six swipes, the chamber clear in under a minute. ⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ +100 XP x8 Current XP: 1, 900 / 10, 000 HUNGER: 7 / 10 ███████ ░░░ 7/10"Max," said Fenwick.

"Eat." Max was already eating. Fenwick turned to face the far wall and studied it with great professional interest. He had seen Max eat before. He had made his peace with it in the abstract. The abstract and the reality continued to negotiate, and the reality was louder than he would have preferred. He gave it a full minute before he turned back. ⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ HUNGER: 8 / 10 ████████ ░░ 8/10 Fenwick used the time to read the chamber. The ceiling marks were extensive — weeks of use, maybe more.

Scratch patterns on the walls where they had anchored, the distribution of creatures that had established this as home rather than passing through. Then he found the marks on the western wall. Scratches at a height that didn't match the cknolls. Something taller. He measured them against the doorframe by eye. Considerably taller. Fenwick looked at the tunnel entrance from the shoulder. The darkness had the same quality he had found at Cutty Sark — old, deep, the kind that had been dark for a very long time.

He took out his notes. He wrote down the wall marks, the height, and the measurement. He put his notes away.

"Ready?" said Fenwick. Max looked at the tunnel.

"Bigger," he said.

"Down there." Fenwick looked at him.

"Yes," he said.

"I think so too." Max headed into the tunnel. Fenwick followed.