by Blink, Bob
“How far inside can you make it work?” Burke asked.
“That’s a question, isn’t it? At least as far as we’ve walked today, but there might be limitations. Something to consider when we come back.”
“Come back?” Burke asked unhappily. “You intend to come back here?”
“I can’t see a choice. We have to know where this goes and what it is. Come, let’s get back to the entrance. We can jump back to the Outpost from just outside the entrance.”
Chapter 95
“It’s foolishness,” Februus objected when Rigo presented his plan to go back down into the tunnel. “I agree with the rest of the plan, but going down there is dangerous. Where would you hide if another group of the creatures decided to come through?”
“There are places we can go off to the sides. We can also use our invisibility, and as a last resort we have Brightfire. Given six or seven of the strongest of us, we could link to handle any size herd.”
“I agree with the surface searches, but I don’t see this exploring the tunnel as safe. You’ve already learned that you can’t make a Bypass out of the place, and you have no idea how deep into the tunnels you can go and still make a jump back.”
“That’s something we will have to experiment with,” Rigo agreed. “Periodically we can attempt to reach back to the entrance. As we go deeper, we might have to make a series of jumps to get back, if distance becomes the limiting factor. That should be safe enough. If we need to run, we know that there is nothing behind us. The Hoplani don’t appear to be using the pathway to return.”
“It will be all volunteer,” Rigo explained. “I’d like a large team of six or seven, but I’ll go alone if no one else is willing.” That wasn’t strictly true. If no one else would go, Rigo would have to reconsider. He could see the risks, but felt it important they explore. But going alone would be foolhardy.
“What about the other groups?” Februus asked.
“I see two kinds of searches are necessary, but we probably can’t handle both at once because people have to deal with the herds on this side of the barrier as well. We need to find if there are any more exit points on this side of the barrier, and we need to try and locate the entrance or entrances to the cave on the far side of the barrier.”
“You said that Jeen had volunteered to organize that search?”
“That’s right. She will need a number of teams again. The teams should be three or four strong, and will need horses as they did for the visual check of the barrier. This will have to be a painstaking search since it would be easy to hide the entrance in all that land. There will also be a large number of Hoplani, so the teams will be at some risk and need to be strong enough to fight, and ready to flee if required. We aren’t out to eliminate the herds on the far side of the barrier.”
“I had hoped that the risks to our people were over,” Februus complained. “We lost enough just getting the barrier in place. Who’s to say this will be the end of it?”
“What choice have we?” Rigo explained. “The Hoplani have to be stopped, otherwise we will spend every day of the rest of our lives trying to kill those that breach the barrier. I’m not certain we can win that way.”
Finally Februus waved his hand. “Do what you want. You will anyway. I really have little say over matters anymore, but everyone be warned this is dangerous.”
In the end, Rigo got his six volunteers. Surprisingly Burke agreed to come, as did Kela and Tara and three others. Nycoh wished to come as well, but Rigo wouldn’t hear of it. Not only was she still too young, he was still bothered by the risks he’d exposed her to bringing up the barrier, but he sensed she had a greater purpose for wizards and must be protected. Jeen was able to field eight four-man teams, which meant that over half of the wizards known would be occupied in the task of searching for the tunnels or where they went.
“This is really not a good idea,” Burke muttered softly as the seven wizards started back into the tunnel that he and Rigo had explored the previous day.
“You say something?” Kela asked as they entered into the gloom, their wizard’s lights coming on as each stepped out of the sunlight. It was cool inside, pleasant after the harsh light of the Ruins outside. If it weren’t for the odd smell, this wouldn’t have been so bad.
“Nothing,” Burke mumbled. He didn’t like this place, but no one was going to say he shirked his duty.
The team walked a short distance into the tunnel. For Burke and Rigo it was familiar territory, but for the others the odd cave was intriguing. Then Rigo opened a Bypass to the deepest point he and Burke had gone previously. This would speed the process and also show they could create the jump points going either way. Moments later they were back to the point they had turned around the day before.
“It’s much bigger in here,” Kela said, looking around.
“Deeper too,” Rigo told the rest of them. Burke and I walked a slowly descending trail to get to this point.”
After listening for the sound of Hoplani and hearing nothing, they proceeded to head farther into the cave. They soon discovered that they could make a Bypass that extended about two glass walking distance. They were out of reach of the entrance. Just to be certain, Rigo had Tara make a Bypass, he wanted to be certain that someone weaker than himself or Burke was able, and they jumped back to an earlier point. Seeing no problem, he had another make a jump point back to where they had been. It appeared they could string together as many as needed to get back to the entrance. Reassured, they started heading deeper into the tunnel once again.
“Something up ahead,” Tara said, pointing into the distance.
The walls had changed little since they had descended into the tunnels, and soon had become boring. Now when Rigo peered into the distance where Tara pointed he could see faint odd flickering lights reflecting off the walls. Whatever was producing the lights was even farther into the darkness.
“Hoplani,” Burke said suddenly.
Then they could all hear the rumble of hooves as an indeterminate number of the creatures headed their way. Quickly the noise was becoming louder as if the animals were moving faster than they usually liked to travel.
“Find a place to hide,” Rigo shouted, looking to the walls for one of the frequent depressions.
“There,” Kela shouted, pointing to a large boulder that extended from the otherwise smooth wall and provided a secure area in the back. Quickly the seven wizards hurried over, and per Rigo’s advice, activated their invisibility. All were ready to switch to Brightfire if needed.
As the herd approached, the walls of the tunnel began to flicker and glow with a dim purplish light. It wasn’t much, but the need for their own wizard’s lights which they had already extinguished, was removed. They gladly used the strange illumination the cave was providing rather than risk their own being seen. Suddenly the first of the herd came into view. Others followed immediately behind and the cave echoed with the sounds of their snorting and the thunder of so many hooves on the hard surfaces. The walls glowed brighter now, as if the Hoplani were somehow triggering the light. Intent on their own passage, the creatures paid no attention to the small dark cavity that hid the seven explorers. Fortunately, this was a small herd, only two or three hundred strong, so they didn’t press up against the walls. Soon enough, they had all passed, and the glowing in the walls began to fade, finally only a faint flickering in the distance. Rigo lit his own light and dropped his invisibility.
“That was interesting,” he said looking after the creatures.
“The Hoplani were causing the walls to glow,” Kela said, voicing Rigo’s own suspicions.
“How would that be possible?” Burke asked.
“The crystals,” Rigo said, giving voice to the suspicion Daim had just fed him.
The crystals had been discovered by one of the Patrol teams some weeks earlier. They now knew that all of the Hoplani had such crystals embedded in them. Daim had almost winced when Rigo had picked up one of those shown to him. It brought
to his mind the Rift and something he had sensed in it so long ago. Daim had nothing to base his suspicions on, but he had wondered to Rigo if the Hoplani had somehow a connection to the formation of the Rift. Perhaps the appearance hadn’t been random as thought at the time. It was worrisome, because that suggested it might come again. Now, this surprising development. The Hoplani caused this strange cavern to provide light, a light very much of the color Daim recalled from the Rift. That also suggested to him that the Rift might have had something to do with the creation of the tunnel itself. That might make sense, because after the Rift, the Hoplani had started dying off, so they might not have learned of the tunnel until recently. The one wrinkle in all of this was the fact that the Rift had been as disastrous for the Hoplani as it had been for mankind. Could the Hoplani have brought into being something that nearly destroyed themselves, or had they been altered by its presence? The Rift and Hoplani had shared the Ruins for a time and therefore might have interacted more than man. Rigo wished they could have kept one of the crystals and brought it here to experiment. Unfortunately, the crystals lasted only a short time after the Hoplani were killed. Then they seemed to simply sublimate and disappear. For Hoplani killed with Brightfire, the crystals were often destroyed with the animal itself.
“It appears we have already learned something,” Rigo said, although he was uncertain what they would do with the information. Mostly he was concerned, driven by Daim’s fears to some degree, with the possibility of another Rift.
After what they had seen, no one wanted to try and sleep in the caves if unnecessary, so they made a series of Bypass arches and quickly retreated to the entrance, where they could jump back to the Outpost. No one camped in the Ruins unless absolutely necessary. The Hoplani they had encountered inside had already passed by the entrance. In the morning they would be able to quickly return to where they had been and continued probing deeper. Thus far they had found only one passageway, but had no idea where the exit might be. Rigo had left one of the activated tracking bracelets where they had stopped for the day, and now that they were outside he tried to locate a point above ground where they had been. The bracelet was faint, but he did locate it, and jumping to a point in the Ruins that he assumed was above the tunnel he could see one of the towers in the distance. They appeared to be in line with a track that led from the entrance toward the barrier and the ancient location of the Rift.
Assuming the underground passageway would continue to run in the same direction, Rigo was able to extrapolate the most likely places the tunnel would break the surface on this side of the barrier. It wouldn’t be all the way back to the location of the former Rift. They had been there, and there was nothing to see. It had to be somewhere closer. He located Jeen back at the Outpost, and passed on the information.
The following morning they returned to the tunnel, leapfrogging their way back to where they had left the previous afternoon. Rigo recovered the bracelet and deactivated it. He expected to be leaving more, and there was no point in having extraneous signals floating around. It had already served its purpose.
The day was rather uneventful. The tunnel looked almost identical everywhere, and they only encountered one small herd of Hoplani making its way down the tunnel. That was easily avoided, and by evening they had penetrated much deeper under the Ruins. Once again Rigo left an activated bracelet at their finishing point. They left as they had the previous night. When Rigo located the position of the bracelet from above, he could see they were still on the track he had projected, but now they were on the eastern side of the barrier. During the day they had passed under without realizing it. The Rift was still a couple of days travel from here, but one question had already been answered.
The third day started as uneventful as the second. Within a glass of starting down the untraveled section, a large herd could be seen coming in the distance.
“Let ‘em pass,” Rigo said wearily. He was starting to get tired of the dark cavern. “We can hide over there.” He pointed to another of the frequent bulges in the tunnel where they could take refuge.
Two more uneventful glass passed before they encountered the next group.
“More coming,” Kela announced. She was the first to see the faint flickering along the walls in the distance.
They started looking for a place to hide. There weren’t as many favorable locations in this part of the tunnel, but they wouldn’t have time to hike back to the last place they had seen.
Rigo was about to make a Bypass back when Tara noted, “This is a much larger group.”
Indeed it was, and they were moving very fast. There were so many the interior of the tunnel was packed with the beasts. They bumped and shoved against each other, as well as rubbing along the walls.
“There are too many,” Rigo warned, and quickly opened a Bypass back to a spot well back in the tunnel. He wanted to get back far enough, allow the Hoplani to pass this point, then jump back to this side of them.
“Let’s go,” he said, and led the group into the Bypass.
The output location he had chosen proved to be a problem. The spot they exited by sheer chance was at a spot where the first herd they had encountered a while earlier had reached as well. They exited into the middle of a startled group of the deadly animals. All of them realized what had happened immediately. Brightfire flared and Hoplani died. Bolts of magic peppered the walls around them as the enraged animals released their own magic in response to the frightening appearance of the six wizards. One of Rigo’s group was hit in the arm, but by some miracle that was the only strike. While the others continued to blast the approaching creatures, Rigo opened another Bypass, and then jumped further down the tunnel. Two more jumps brought them to the entrance.
“He’ll be alright,” Tara said after using her healing magic to cure the damage from the Hoplani magic. “He should go back to the Outpost though.”
After making sure Tara was right, they waited until the wounded man had transitioned back home, and then considered what to do. They jointly agreed they should be able to jump past both herds so long as they were careful, so they headed back into the tunnel. Several careful jumps later and they had avoided both herds of animals and were able to continue on their way.
A glass later they came to the first split in the passageway. Roughly equal in size, one choice of passageway continued more or less in the same direction they had been headed while the other branched off at a twenty degree angle.
“Which one?” Burke asked.
Rigo pointed down the expected route, the one that hardly deviated from their established direction. The group continued, wondering if both paths offered openings to the creatures. Further down the tunnel and it split again, this time in three individual tunnels.
“They are coming from all three directions,” Burke said after examining the ground. The floor here was softer than it had been earlier, covered in sand which might have been carried in by the Hoplani from the outside as they made their way underground, and tracks were obvious in all three openings.
“Whatever we do to close this off, will have to be back down the tunnel, probably before the first split,” Rigo said. “I’d like to go a bit farther before we go back and investigate. I have a feeling we are near the end.”
The others agreed and they continued walking, more alert than ever with the possibility of reaching the opening where Hoplani were able to run free. Less than a quarter glass later they could see the first indications of daylight leaking into the tunnel.
“That’s the closest to the barrier one of the big ones has ever been seen,” Tara noted as they looked across the open sand from their spot behind a large dune. Two hundred paces away over three hundred Hoplani and one of the much larger beasts were making their way toward them. It was obvious the smaller Hoplani were being led by the larger animal. Rigo realized they had yet to name the newer creature. Arguments were still outstanding on whether it was an adult version of the Hoplani or something else.
“I want t
o try something,” Rigo said. He looked around the side of the small dune and studied the creature. Before pursuing his interest, he opened a Bypass back to the Outpost. “That’s our escape route,” he warned the others. “I want to try Brightfire on the large one and see how it reacts. We know so little about them, and this one could make its way down the tunnel with the rest.”
“Shall we take out the herd as well?” Tara asked. “That way we can concentrate on the new guy.”
Rigo agreed that made sense. These were close enough to the tunnel and were obviously being pointed that way. Eliminating them now would mean not having to chase them down later on the other side.
After selecting their fields of fire, the six wizards unleashed powerful blasts of magic that quickly wiped out the herd. In less than a minute only the large creature remained. It screamed in anger, and turned toward the spot from which they had attacked. Faster than one would have expected possible for so large a creature, it started toward them. Rigo fired the first blast, a concentrated beam of Brightfire. It struck the creature just below the head in the center of the chest. The hide where the beam struck glowed bluish, almost turquoise, the color spreading around the hide until the front half was glowing to one degree or another.
“Great Risos!” one of the others exclaimed. “That didn’t stop him.”
Rigo had noticed, and released a second blast. His own Brightfire was followed by blasts of magical energy from the others. Burke ran out to get a shot at its side, but that had no more effect than bursts that had struck it in the front. The beams struck the advancing creature repeatedly. Tara had tried magical fire, but that seemed to have no effect at all. Finally they could see that the combined beams from all the wizards were rocking the creature, and it halted its advance and stumbled away.
Shocked, they watched the creature move off, its hide glowing brightly. After a few moments the colors started to fade, and it suddenly turned back toward them.
