Once the weapons were dispensed and the saddles drawn tight, the King spoke again. “Bring forth the pyre worms!”
Two men at the rear of the column spurred forward. They drew two heavy bags from the water and opened them, withdrawing a handful of what looked to be gray mush.
Columbus leaned over to Elara. “Pyre worms?”
She whispered back. “Parasites that glow in the dark. When we travel to dark waters, we attach them on our uniforms to illuminate the area around us.”
Sure enough, the two Gadeir began distributing the gray mush onto the armor of the others. The small masses wriggled. Columbus winced in disgust.
“They’re alive,” he said.
Elara nodded. “Yes. And very rare. They live near the vents of volcanic arteries. Normally, gathering so many in such a short amount of time would have been impossible, but the Gods favored us with the rift this morning.”
“I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”
Fanucio watched a Gadeir place the wriggling grubs on his shoulders, arms, chest, and legs.
“Look like leeches, these,” Fanucio said. He blew onto one on his chest and smiled as it bucked up.
“It would be wise not to touch them,” Elara said. “Their secretions are poisonus and will kill if it comes into contact with human skin.”
Fanucio gulped and tipped his head back. Way back.
“Won’t these make us more visible to whatever’s in there?” Columbus asked when the worms were placed on him.
“The creatures that inhabit this place can see in the dark. This will—how do you say—even the odds?”
Columbus didn’t look relieved.
A light moment came when the Gadeir tried to array Monday and Tuesday with the squirming parasites. The Pygmies shook their heads and raised their spears before the king waved his men away.
Once the group was ready, the king spurred his eldock a few yards forward before turning back to face the party. There would be no lengthy speeches this time.
“The way in is narrow,” he said. “We travel in threes, in tight formation.”
With a nod, he turned for the cave and Dion fell in beside him. A second Gadeir of similar size and disposition took up the opposite side.
Slowly, the vanguard funneled through the mouth of the cave. Columbus and Fanucio joined Elara in the middle.
“Whatever happens, we should stay close,” Elara said.
“Don’t fret, Princess,” Columbus said with a wink. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Elara grunted. “It’s not my safety that concerns me.”
Once inside the cave, darkness descended, revealing a narrow chasm of black water that wound its way deeper into the mountain. A few sparse rays of light broke in from small fissures overhead, but one by one, the Gadeir were forced to turn their sonstaves upside down and activate the light source there.
The chasm filled with a golden glow, casting a slew of shadows across the crags of narrow coral that closed in around them. The column moved slowly, three wide. At one point, Columbus saw the Gadeir in front of him lean away from an outcropping only to see her exposed arm brushed up against it. A trickle of blood immediately appeared. The woman didn’t seem to notice.
Columbus felt his heart thumping in his chest and heard Fanucio take in several deep breaths.
A light breeze slipped in from somewhere, filling the cavern with the smell of brine and little else. The only sounds were the water moving in their path and the occasional passing of bats overhead.
As they delved deeper into the mountain, the light disappeared entirely, and the water turned black as night. How easy it would be for something to come up below them, Columbus thought. It was the only direction the vanguard couldn’t cover.
They wound their way through several more chasms, some so narrow it forced them to pass single file. It took longer than expected. From the sharp looks and gestures, it appeared nerves were already fraying. Columbus took his own deep breath to settle himself.
Once through the bottleneck, the group continued, the rocks above closing in until the slightest movement echoed like thunder. Only then did one of the eldocks mewl. Something moved underwater. A half-dozen sonstaves whined, ready to kill, but no enemy appeared. King Atlas nodded for the group to continue.
It seemed like they’d been in the cave for hours when they came to a dead end in a round grotto. Dion pointed to something on the far wall. It was the symbol of Ouroboros. A snake eating its tail.
“This is the place,” King Atlas said grimly. “From here, we descend.”
Everyone slipped on their breathing masks. Several of the eldocks mewled this time. A few bucked, agitated. They didn’t want to be here, but the bridles compelled them against every instinct. Columbus saw the inherent wrongness in this. Elara did too. She patted her eldock to calm him.
Once ready, King Atlas nodded again, and the riders disappeared beneath the water. Elara nodded to Columbus and he returned the gesture, but to his surprise, his eldock resisted his command. He nudged it with his legs. The eldock resisted him again.
As the last several Gadeir vanished beneath the waters, Columbus found himself alone in the grotto, the only light stemming from the pyre worms on his armor.
Then he heard the voice again.
A child shall lead to the heart.
Columbus’s chest seized, the flutter stronger than ever before. His head whipped around. There, in the water behind him was a large form. He could barely make it out in the dark, but he thought he saw spots.
“Who are you?” Columbus’s voice echoed over the rocks. “What do you want from me?”
The answer never came. The large creature sank beneath the water and disappeared.
Columbus nudged his eldock again. This time, the creature descended. Columbus pulled his breather over his face as the water enveloped him.
The cavern beneath the surface was deeper than Columbus had expected. He saw the faint glow of the king’s party up ahead. Columbus spurred his eldock forward to catch up, imagining the serpents of the dark seeing him alone, like a cub left behind for slaughter.
“Columbus?” Elara’s voice rang in his head as he reached the group.
He almost started, having forgotten about the damn communication device. It was like having her in his mind. She called again.
“I’m here,” he said, though he thought his voice wavered a bit.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked.
“No. My breather was loose, but I’ve got it now.”
He heard her sigh. Was it out of disappointment? Relief? He hoped it was the latter.
Through the scrim of exhalation bubbles, Columbus found his way back to Elara’s side. Fanucio gave him a nervous nod. The Pygmies remained close. Even they recognized the seriousness of the situation.
“Stay close,” Elara said. “We should be coming to the eldock dens soon.”
“Any clues on what to expect?”
“There are many conflicting accounts. A network of tunnels is our best guess.”
“But your father has a map to get us through, right?”
“He has a map,” was all she said.
Columbus swallowed again.
They continued another few hundred yards before the Gadeir started to branch out. Columbus felt a stream of warm water roll over him as they reached another breach. When they passed through, Columbus exhaled.
The cavern was enormous, rising a hundred feet above them and several hundred below. There were a dizzying number of tunnels stacked like a honeycomb. Some were small enough for a dolphin while the largest could fit the Santa Maria, sails and all.
One of the Gadeir shouted as he spotted an unfettered eldock peering out from one of the tunnels. Sonstaves turned in its direction. Elara shouted for them to hold.
“We mustn’t harm the eldocks,” she said. “The serpents live beyond the dens.”
King Atlas glanced back at his daughter but didn’t countermand her order. Inste
ad, he ordered his troops to spread out and investigate. As they did, Columbus signaled Fanucio to wait with him just inside the cavern’s entrance. If they had to flee, they would be the first out.
One of the Pygmies swam near the eldock tunnels and was using the party’s lights to make hulking shadows. When one of the Gadeir startled, he turned and fired a blast from his sonstave, making the Pygmies roar with delight. The rest of the vanguard wasn’t so amused, especially Dion who fixed Columbus with a withering stare.
Eventually, someone found the honeycomb entrance marked with a second symbol of Ouroboros.
The Gadeir entered two at a time behind Dion and the other hulking guard. King Atlas fell in behind with Elara, Columbus, Fanucio and the Pygmies in the middle.
The tunnel was shrouded in darkness. Thick algae coated the walls, its span filling the water like soup. At every turn, the party found more offshoots heading in a myriad of directions. Down some of those blackened corridors, Columbus saw sleek shapes hiding just out of sight. Eldocks. Wild ones. Their presence was enough to induce the tamed eldocks to mewl. The Gadeir sat poised for an attack.
The formation moved slower in those narrow confines. At various points, Columbus noticed someone ahead had rubbed the muck near the tunnel entrances, only turning down those that bore the Ouroboros symbol. Eventually, the column stalled. Columbus asked what was wrong.
“They’ve lost the path,” Elara answered.
Up ahead, Columbus saw the king and a few others looking over the map, protected in a waterproof slip. Columbus felt a surge of panic. The thought of getting lost down here, hundreds of feet below sea level with a limited amount of air terrified him. He could only imagine the lot of them, fumbling around, increasingly desperate and unable to find their way out.
With a deep breath, Columbus relaxed. He understood the nature of fear, how it could plunder the very soul of men. Sitting patiently, listening to the sound of his own breathing, Columbus felt a subtle tug beneath his hips. He ignored it until his eldock moved a second time. He looked down and saw the creature’s head canted to the left. He turned his sonstave light toward the tunnel and saw movement within. It was an eldock, the smallest he’d ever seen.
Just then, the voice in his head spoke again.
A child shall lead them.
The small eldock was the child.
A wave of goosebumps rolled over Columbus’s flesh. He signaled Elara. “I think we’re supposed to go this way.”
“What makes you say that?”
Columbus looked back down the tunnel only to find it empty. “Call it a hunch.”
To her credit, Elara didn’t dismiss him. Instead, she touched her arm and spoke, presumably to the king. He and others looked back at them.
“My father wants to know if you’re certain.”
Columbus nearly laughed. Was he certain? How could anyone be certain of anything down here? But something in his gut told him this was the right thing to do. He had begun to suspect the eldocks played a bigger hand in his quest than anyone suspected. He had to trust his instincts.
“Yes,” he said.
Elara relayed the answer before turning back to him. “You are to lead.”
Columbus saw surprise on Fanucio’s face as he directed his eldock into the tunnel. Elara followed right behind him. Inside the tunnel, the darkness grew more oppressive. The sonstave lamp and the glow worms lit a halo of space around him, making it difficult to track the small eldock ahead. It swam through more winding tunnels, but each time Columbus feared he’d lost the creature, he’d find it waiting just ahead.
At last, they came to another opening where the temperature of the water dropped to just above frigid. A final symbol of Ouroboros confirmed this was the place. Spilling through that final opening, Columbus saw the whelping eldock heading for a different tunnel that led back into the dens. When it hesitated, Columbus raised a hand. The creature turned and disappeared.
One by one, the vanguard exited the eldock dens into a long underwater channel. Columbus’s eldock moved uneasily. Elara’s must have too because she said, “We must be getting close.”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Fanucio gasped. “Look!”
At the far end of the cavern beyond two crumbling columns, the facade of several buildings loomed. Stairs lay broken and crumbled on the cavern floor while windows and doorways beckoned like foreboding mouths of doom. This must be where the slaves once lived, Columbus thought. The king must have thought so too. His voice rang in Columbus’s head.
“We draw near,” King Atlas said. “Be ready, my Gadeir. The labyrinth awaits beyond.”
The vanguard pushed forward again, each Gadeir’s head on a swivel, each sonstave charged and ready. The path continued to narrow. Dion lifted two fingers. The column splintered into two groups, one above the other. As the walls closed in around them, Columbus understood this would be where they were most vulnerable.
The silence was deafening, punctuated only by Columbus’s breathing, which he could no longer regulate. With each exhalation, the mask he wore clouded over, only to dissipate a moment later. Fanucio must have been feeling the same thing. He rode just in front of Columbus, the bubbles rising from his mask continuous now. Columbus wanted to push ahead, move through this corridor as fast as possible, but he knew that would only cause chaos. All war columns were vulnerable, but it was always those that broke the line that were the first to die.
The attack came without warning. Something black as pitch burst from one of the vacant windows, its spindly arms latching onto a Gadeir before vaulting with him to the other side. A burst of sonstave fire lit up the channel. When it stopped, there was no sign of the rider.
King Atlas was shouting orders when a second shadow exploded down from above and enveloped a female Gadeir in a crushing embrace. Even underwater, her screams could be heard, followed by the blinding release of more sonstave fire. This time, the creature was hit, black blood filling the water and sending shockwaves through the column.
“Ride!” King Atlas howled.
All at once, the eldocks burst forward, moving in haste for the end of the cavern. The enemy’s response was immediate as a tidal wave of stygian hell spilled from the doorways and windows in swarms of black death that maneuvered as fast as the eye could see. Those slender limbs tore at the Gadeir armor, slicing through them with ease and searing the flesh beneath. In response, sonstaves erupted at will, turning the cavern from night to day.
Black blood mixed with red as the pitched screams of both sides rang through Columbus’s mask. He stayed close to Elara, firing his sonstave as quickly as he could. He hit one, then another, before a third evaded him. Elara proved even more adept, spinning and pivoting her eldock to fire behind, below, and above them.
Fanucio screamed out as one of the serpent creatures wrapped its appendages around his eldock and flung him from his saddle. As Columbus swooped in to grab him, Monday and Tuesday charged forward, their spears sinking into the enemy with deadly precision.
Gripping his first mate, Columbus saw the column rising in front of them. They’d cleared the channel, but the cavern had come to a dead end. He broke the surface of the water just as the king’s party was leaping off their eldocks to make for solid ground. He ran next to Elara, both firing blasts as the serpents shot from the water.
The cavern was filled with shouts, screams, and the pitched whine of sonstave fire as the Gadeir drew a line at the water’s edge. Elara ripped off her mask. “Send the eldocks back into the dens!”
A piercing whistle echoed through the cavern and one by one, the riderless eldocks sank and swam away.
The sonstaves fell silent. The serpents had either given up the hunt or pursued the eldocks back toward the dens, leaving only the laments of the wounded or dying. King Atlas and Dion had taken up position near a large rock formation with tooth-like projections overhead.
“A-are the serpents gone?” Fanucio asked shaking from fear and cold.
A rustling sound echo
ed through the cavern. Water splashed beyond their light. Rocks crumbled behind them.
“No,” King Atlas said. “The real battle starts here. Atlanteans! Defensive formations!”
The vanguard divided into several clusters, Gadeir standing back-to-back. Columbus found himself in a different cluster than Elara and his friends. The serpents attacked again with blinding speed, using the stalactites and stalagmites to spring toward their victims. Even in the low light of the cavern, Columbus could see the fiends better, marking the long flexible limbs aligned with scores of razor-sharp talons and several mouths that hissed in unison as they descended.
If they were looking for easy prey, they’d come to the wrong place. The ranks of Gadeir split in two, the foremost warriors activating shields to form a barrier while the hindmost group alternated blasts. The first wave of serpents was rent apart, quickly replaced by a second, which upon seeing their fallen brethren, altered their attacks, moving through the rocks in spurts, their spindly appendages whipping forward to sling jagged barbs that mostly bounced off the shields. Those that did get through, must have been poisoned though, for the victim’s skin quickly began to smoke and sizzle, and they collapsed in convulsions, dying within seconds.
The battle was pitched and brutal, but the Gadeir did not flounder. They stood strong together, working in unison as they had so many times before. There was a beauty to their method, an art beyond ken. Even the king was lost in the rhythms, his mighty sword felling creatures again and again. His great booming laugh galvanized the others and galvanized Columbus in turn. No wonder the Atlanteans followed this man. He was born for this.
Though casualties piled up on both sides, the battle soon turned toward the Atlanteans. The serpent forces grew fewer and more harried until the sonstave fire was no longer constant and the ranks had a chance to breathe again. The smell of ozone and gore filled the air, but when the cavern finally went silent, Columbus looked to ensure his friends were still there. Fanucio’s chest rose and fell heavily, and his ill-fitting armor was torn, but when he locked eyes with Columbus and offered a half-hearted smile, he knew the man was all right.
Christopher Columbus and the Lost City of Atlantis Page 22
