Kinderling 50

In case you are interested in starting this story at the beginning, Kinderling 1 can be found here:

The Tricycle of Thought: Kinderling 1

Please don't judge the story or the writing too harshly, this story is written with little to no editing.  It is just meant to get me writing regularly for practice.  

Now back to our story, already in progress..

I know you've heard, time and time again, to never get too married to a plan.  The original plan had been to find Mouse, hopefully alone if possible, stick him with one of Mama's pins that would immobilize him and snatch him out with the monster-go-stick.  Once we were out of danger, we could pull the harness off him and take him home.  So far, we hadn't seen hide nor hair of him, but we did find an Elf in distress.

Mama started probing the back wall for weaknesses.  I looked at my quiver considering using my remaining explosive arrow, but with how much of a mistake that had been last time, I didn't see how it would do anything but collapse the sewer-come-dungeon and bury us all.

Soon Mama found a loose stone, then another by wiggling the first until it came free.  Soon there was a hole in the back wall of the Elf's cell large enough for Mama and I to crawl through.

Closer up, I could see the Elf really was in dire trouble.  Everywhere the iron touched her skin it had turned black and black tendrils streaked up her arms and legs, and her hands and feet were practically black from the manacles that encircled her wrists and ankles.  The iron encircling her neck was even worse.  The blackness had seeped up past her neck covering her jaw and engulfing her ears nearly to the pointed tip.  I could tell she was in immense pain, but trying not to show it.

"See little ones, I am nearly gone."  She said, "There is nothing you can do."  

Mama just laughed.  "You Elves and your dour fatalism.  Shush now and let me look at this."

The Elf seemed taken aback at being told to shush. 

Mama pulled a small metal probe from her bag.  I recognized it as being one she kept in her medical kit.  I didn't know what Mama usually used it for, but this time she started working it into the locking mechanism for the iron shackle around the Elf's neck.  Soon, the lock sprang open, and the Elf's neck was free.

Mama wasted no time, she handed me the probe and dove back into her bag and started pulling out herbs and other things she brought.  Mama soon had a ball of various herbs and other things.

"What is tha..."  The Elf tried to say, and Mama uncerimoniously shoved the ball into the Elf's mouth.

"Don't try to talk, won't do you no good."  Mama said to the Elf, "That's a ball of Viper's Bane, Three leaf, a couple kinds of Mint, and some Willow bark.  I'm hoping the Three leaf and Viper's Bane will work together to pull out the poison, and the Willow will help with the inflammation.  It's all I got with me.  Once we get you out of here, we'll see what else we can find."

"Tandy, are you just going to sit there?"  Mama asked turning to me.  I realized I should have been working on getting the Elf's hands and feet free.  I hurried and got to work.

The locks proved rough and not very well made.  In fact, the last one was so loose I was able to fit my pinkie finger into the lock and move the mechanism enough to unlock it.  Gorf locksmiths?  Definitely not the state of the art.  

It soon became apparent that the Elf was not going to be able to walk.  Her feet were black, and the skin was cracking in places revealing that the blackness went pretty deep although there was still pink flesh to be seen in the bottom of the cracks, so thankfully the blackness wasn't all the way through.  

We basically had to lay the Elf on her back and drag her through the hole in the wall that Mama made.  

"Hurry!  It won't be long before someone discovers that she is missing." Mama said as she carefully re-stacked the stones in the hole she had made in the cell wall.  Turns out Mama has a talent for understatement because we heard the alarm go up a surprisingly short time later.

We loaded the Elf up on the monster-go-stick and started back the way we came.  Mama and I had been riding our go-sticks through the sewers the whole time because neither of us wanted to walk through the sewer sludge, so we hadn't made any tracks.  It soon occurred to me that we could get lost in this place, one place was effectively identical to another in this place, and without tracks to follow how were we ever going to find our way.

Apparently Mama had already thought of that because she lead on, and soon we found ourselves at the stairs down to the lower sewer levels.  From there it was a hop skip and a jump back to the outlet we entered the sewers from and out to the woods and freedom.

Freedom, and fresh air, came not a second too soon as far as I'm concerned.  That place was easily the worst place I had ever been in my life.

Once we were out, Mama went right to business.  "Tandy, we need a safe place, close by, with lots of fresh water."

I knew just the place.  Flower and I had crash landed there once.

"Never mind that."  the Elf said spitting out the wad of herbs and medicine along with - to my dismay - a good number of black teeth.  "The iron has gotten too far into my system, it's a lost cause."

"You do not die unless I say you die!"  Mama yelled at her, and shoved another wad of herbs in the Elf's mouth.  "Lead away Tandy!"

The flight to the secluded lake where Flower and I landed after our desperate escape from Gorf Slave Soldiers - it seemed like years ago - took longer than I expected.  Night had fallen almost full by the time we got there but I was able to find the dry cave Flower and I rested in.  I was sure that the Mountain Gorfs would be searching for us, but they couldn't fly.  We could.  Without that ability I was fairly sure, or at least hoped, that we wouldn't be found.

"We'll have to risk some light." Mama said, "I need to take care of this Iron poisoning as quickly as possible."

"If we go in a little deeper, there is a jog to the right.  Hopefully the fire pit I dug last time I was here is still in place."  I replied, "When Flower and I escaped, they didn't even look for us here.  I don't think they know this place exists."

Sure enough, the fire pit was as I left it, and the extra wood that Flower and I didn't use was still there, nice and dry.  There wasn't much in the way of bedding.  Mama and I pulled out all we had and made as comfortable a bed as we could for the Elf.  Kinderling blankets are woefully short for an Elf.  Our plan had been for rescuing Mouse, and Mouse was tough.  While we did talk about also finding the Elf in our planning sessions, I don't think either of us expected to actually find one.  

Mama had me put some water on to boil in the little pot from my pack and, mumbling to herself like she does when trying to solve a particularly nasty problem, took off on her go-stick with one of the lights.  The moment she left I started worrying about her being out there giving away her position with that light in the darkness of the night.  As time went on, I grew more and more worried.  I ended up replenishing the water in the pot a few times so that it would still be full and boiling when Mama returned.  The Elf laid there, her breathing becoming more and more raspy.  There was nothing I could do.  I hate that feeling.  It made me surly.  Luckily the Elf didn't bother herself with conversation, I'm  not sure I could have managed, although at least that would have told me she wasn't too far gone yet.  Part of me worried that her silence was because she was too weak to talk.

Time and time again I got on my monster-go-stick intent on going out and looking for Mama, but I knew better.  Mama would be angry with me if I abandoned the Elf that way.  Tears were running down my face by the time Mama finally returned.  True to form, Mama just pushed me out of the way and started tossing things into the pot of boiling water.  Roots, twigs, powder.  Was that dirt?  Ground up something?  

Without skipping a beat, Mama pulled her own small pot out, shoved it into my hands, and simply said boil water.  Hey, I can boil water like a champ.  At least I'm not useless.

By the time I got Mama's pot filled and boiling over the fire.  The stuff that Mama was cooking up in my pot looked like a horrible, tar-like sludge.  The stench was like nothing I had ever smelled before.  It was sharp, coppery, almost sweet but not.  Think of all the negative attributes of your favorite sweet smell, and amp them up to ten, then remove all the pleasant attributes.  Now add a horrid metallic tang on top.  One that sticks to, and hurts the back of your throat every time you breathe in.

While she was stirring the sludge, Mama occasionally tossed something into the other pot.

"That's the best I can do."  Mama said, "It'll either work, or it won't.  Tandy, put that tea into three cups, one for each of us."

Mama gently woke the Elf.  Elves, as far as I had ever heard, supposedly didn't sleep, but that one was most definitely sleeping.  When Mama helped her sit up, I gasped.  While Mama was searching for ingredients, and we were cooking, the black marks from the iron had spread.  The Elf, or at least the parts of her I could see, were all black.  Even her silver hair, except for the very tips, had turned black.  I could tell Mama was just as surprised as I was.  I don't think anyone else would have been able to read that from Mama, but I could.

Mama instantly turned to the business at hand.  With a cry of shock from the Elf, Mama pulled her tunic up revealing her stomach.  There was almost a diamond shape of pale white skin covering the Elf's belly.

"Whew, it's not gone too far yet."  Mama said.

We only had two cups, so I portioned the tea into our two cups left the last third of it in the pot.  That actually didn't work out too badly.  For someone as tall as the Elf, our Kinderling-sized cups were all but useless tiny things.  On top of that, the Elf seemed to have lost the use of her fingers, so she took the pot in two hands, much like a toddler might.  Mama drank her tea down in one go, then insisted the Elf drink.  I drank my tea while the Elf sniffed at hers, seemingly trying to decide if life was worth drinking the tea.  In the end, she drank.

"Good, that should shut down our sense of smell for a few days, but it's worth it.  Now comes the hard part, we have to cover you in this sludge to pull the iron out of your system."  Mama said to the Elf.

The Elf looked at the sludge, sniffed.... then sniffed again with a confused look on her face.

"You won't be able to smell that, or anything else for that matter.  Haven't you been paying attention?"

"What is in it?" the Elf rasped.  She could barely talk, I could tell it was really painful.

"It's best if you just don't know.  Think of it as a mud bath if you must, but we have to get this on you now, or you are going to die."

The Elf sighed put her head down and nodded.

I was shocked as Mama unceremoniously started stripping the Elf out of her clothes.  As I have said before, Kinderlings aren't, in general, prudes.  Kinderling villagers who, due to poor life choices or bad fortune, found themselves destitute in the village often bathed and washed their clothes in the village pond.  Likewise, it wasn't uncommon in the summer to see Kinderlings skinny dipping.  It was generally accepted that s body is a body, and a little skin is nothing to get all worried about.  However, nobody just went up to another person and yanked their clothes off.  That would have been rude.

Mama was being down-right rude at the moment.  I could tell the Elf would have liked to fight back, but didn't have the strength to.

As soon as she was finished stripping the Elf, Mama grabbed a handful of the sludge and started spreading it on the Elf's shoulder.

"What are you waiting for Tandy.  We need to cover every square inch!"

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't want to.  I smelled that stuff before I drank Mama's tea, and that stuff was vile.  The fact that I couldn't smell it now didn't change that.  A hard look from Mama did work to change my attitude and get me moving though.  Only Mama could make such a look.

The Elf was soon covered from head to toe in goop.  She looked so indignant that I wanted to laugh, but was mostly able to keep it inside.  Mama gently laid the Elf back down on her make-shift bed and she was asleep instantly. 

"Nothing to do but wait." Mama said,  "Help me keep a watch on her, parts of that stuff are going to turn red, about the color of rust actually, and we'll need to scoop those off when we see them and re-apply fresh goop."

"Gotya." I replied.