Somewhere, deep underground, is an ancient city named Annbar. I lived there once, alongside Imogen and her handsome brother Dressen. Deep within Annbar’s concrete halls is a great library, where much of the knowledge of our dead world was stored. Go there, find the library, and learn what you can. It is the only advice I can offer, besides this—the people that hunt you will not stop until you are dead.
An ethereal woman appeared in the mirror beside her. Kara looked over her shoulder but the woman disappeared again. “How do I find Annbar? I’ve never heard of such a place.”
I cannot help you, for I no longer remember its location. Perhaps the man who gave you Imogen’s beacon knows.
“Wrynric said he found the artifact in an ancient dead city. Could it be Annbar?”
Perhaps.
It was a start at least.
“One other thing, at the Dead City he claimed he heard a voice coming from beyond a door. I thought it all nonsense at the time; but he said that in one of my father’s visiondreams Arden saw me go to the door and speak to a metal man. What do you know of this metal man? Could he help me?”
I know nothing of this metal man. But be warned. Many died in Annbar because of Imogen’s children and he could be one of them.
Kara licked her lips thoughtfully. “In my home in the Caverns of Stelemia, there were metal beasts attacking a city called Deep Cave. Could they be Imogen’s Steel Children?”
I do not know.
“What do Imogen’s children look like then? These looked like giant men and dogs in heavy plate armor.”
My memories of what the enemy looked like are corrupted. All I know is they are not flesh and blood, but steel, and that they will think nothing of killing you. Be careful, they have woken and will seek to finish what they failed to achieve long ago. The destruction of humanity.
“Could something in the library reveal a way to defeat them?”
Again, I do not know. Perhaps if you learn to use Imogen’s beacon you can use it against them.
That wasn’t the answer Kara had hoped for. She wanted to be rid of the thing, not wield it as a weapon. “How am I meant to use it? I don’t even know what it is.”
My memories. Corrupted. You must learn on your own, Not Imogen.
Kara sighed. Why did the voice insist on being so obtuse?
The woman appeared in the mirror beside her again. “How come I can see you in the mirror yet when I search for you beside me there’s nothing there?”
I am here but not here. What is in the mirror is real but not real. It is but a reflection of reality.
Oh. Yet another obtuse answer that would give Kara a headache if she tried to decipher it.
Leaning closer to the mirror to get a better look, Kara found the woman’s features were as indistinct as her answers. One moment she appeared to be in her thirties, with short hair and an expressionless face, and at others she looked old and skeletally thin, with long gray hair and deep wrinkles.
One thing that didn’t change was her eyes. They were filled with an eternity’s worth of sorrow and guilt. Their eyes met. It was too much. Kara backed away and put her hand over her mouth and shuddered.
The woman suddenly looked up and quivered.
Kara glanced at the ceiling too. “What is it?”
The Great Shadow is waking, and with him the ghosts that haunt this world. I must leave and return to those I have hidden, lest he find them. If his shadow falls on you, run and hide but do not linger here long, for night approaches and you will not survive it.
“You can’t leave me here,” Kara moaned. “I don't know how to leave.”
The ghostly woman faded to nothing and a deep silence fell over the room.
She was gone.
What did the Great Shadow look like? How would Kara know if it was after her?
Unnerved, Kara went back into the bedroom. What should she do? She needed to wake and return to her real body. But how did one leave a visiondream?
She thought of herself waking but nothing happened. “Wake up... Wake up, Kara. Ummm, leave visiondream.” She looked around the room. “End visiondream. Go home.”
Nothing.
Next she tried slapping herself in the face. Still nothing. She slapped herself again, this time harder. “Ow, that hurt.”
Grabbing the artifact, she shook it. “Light up. Why are you dead? I want to get out of here.”
After half a minute of shaking it, the bulb remained unlit so she gave up. Time to try something else.
The only option left was to open the other doors and see what was beyond them. Perhaps she could find something to help her leave. What that something would be, she had no idea.
Leaving the room, she opened the other doors. Beyond each were more living quarters. One had a thick jacket lying on the floor but when she tried to pick it up, the material turned to dust. After searching all the other rooms and finding nothing of use, she cautiously approached the twin metal doors.
The closer she got to them, the colder it became. Kara tentatively touched one of the handles with a finger. The metal was so cold her skin stuck to it.
She pulled her hand back and sucked her aching finger to warm it. Gathering up the hem of her gown, she used it as insulation and grabbed hold of one of the handles and tried to turn it. It didn’t move. Years of ice and rust had frozen it in place.
It took several minutes of wrenching the handle up and down to finally get it to unlock. She pushed the door open an inch but a freezing gust of air blasted through the crack and she doubled over and shivered.
Why couldn’t the code that had brought her here have given her something better to wear than a thin courtesan gown? A thick sheepskin cloak would be nice. Oh, and fur gloves too. Her hands were like ice!
When Kara recovered she opened the door wide enough to squeeze through. Instead of it leading outside like she’d expected, she found a stairway leading up to another set of double doors. She hugged herself and made her way up.
Like the last set of doors, the ones at the top were covered in ice and it took all her strength to get the handles to turn. When the lock finally clicked open, she was near breathless.
The doors flew inward, knocking her head over heels back down the stairs. When she came to a stop she waited for a bout of headspins to pass, then checked herself over to make sure nothing was broken. No shooting pain, blood or numbness, just a pounding heart and a slight headache from where she’d knocked her head. Certain she was all right, she got back to her feet.
A dense, white mist slithered down the stairs toward her. Kara backed away before it touched her. It followed her through the other set of doors and along the corridor. She was almost at the entrance to the room where the ghostly woman had spoken to her when the mist stopped and slowly settled, leaving a layer of white dust.
Kara bent down to get a closer look. The dust appeared to be flakes of white crystal covered in fine white powder. Snow. Like she’d seen in her other visiondreams.
Gathering up her courage, Kara walked back up the stairs and into the knee-high mist. Bright light filtered in through the doorway and she shielded her eyes against it.
To her surprise, her eyes adjusted to the glare in moments. They’d changed somehow, at least in the visiondream. Not only could she see in the dark, she could now see in blinding light without excruciating pain.
A waist-high mound of snow filled the doorway. With little choice but to fight her way through, she put her foot on top of it. Her leg sank up to her knee. “Gah, that’s cold.” Why couldn’t this be easier?
Other than being cold, the snow posed no immediate threat, so Kara climbed out the doorway. By the time she was through, her whole body felt frozen.
She looked around to get her bearings but a low-level mist reduced her visibility to a mere dozen feet. Above the mist, the Sun shone from a sky as gray as forged iron.
The Sun radiated an almost imperceptible warmth. How could it do that when the world was frozen? It looked so small and f
ar away. She rubbed her hands together. Too bad the warmth wasn’t enough to stop her freezing to death. Her legs were already going numb and the longer they stayed immersed in snow, the worse they seemed to become.
If she didn’t find a way out of the visiondream soon, she may very well die.
The Sun steadily descended toward the horizon. What would happen once it slid beneath it? Would it get dark? The ghostly woman had said Kara wouldn’t survive the night. Did it become colder or was something else out here that only came out after the sun disappeared?
A loud crack and then a thumping sound broke the silence. Kara held her breath and inched back toward the door, scanning the mist for the shadow.
Nothing moved and the world was silent once more.
It was too cold to stand still for long. With no idea where to head, Kara walked in a straight line away from the door. Fighting her way through the waist-deep snow was hard going. Her gown became wet and froze to her skin, adding to her discomfort. Soon the cold made her bend over double and she had to do her best not to collapse face first into the snow.
“Help me,” she groaned to the ghostly woman, through chattering teeth. “Please, come back and help me.”
The mist closed in around her, as if sensing her plight and readying itself to consume her if she fell. Her visibility reduced to a few feet, her keen eyes unable to make out anything but a wall of white.
If she didn’t find cover soon, she’d freeze to death.
Shivering violently, she pushed on and soon forgot the world around her. She put one foot before the other. Then when the snow became deeper, she pulled herself forward with her hands, her progress painfully slow.
Suddenly, a huge shadow darkened the sky and the world went deathly still. Dread unlike any Kara had felt before wound tendrils of ice around her heart, a dread born of instinct rather than thought. The shadow flew overhead then disappeared into the mist.
She hadn’t gotten a good look at the shadow, but from what she had seen, it was huge. A vague shape forged in a nightmare, borne on frigid wings.
Getting to her knees was a struggle but she made it. Breathing shallow breaths, Kara scanned the sky. Nothing up there now, except the Sun slowly sinking below the horizon.
Kara pressed on, but the fear returned, this time greater than before. Her gut roiled, her breathing became a shallow pant. A black mass flew in front of the Sun, and for a brief moment the world became as dark as the Limestone Caves.
Run, screamed a voice deep inside her.
It was not Kara’s voice, or that of the ghostly woman. It was weak and distant, yet sounded strangely familiar.
Run, it screamed again.
Kara pushed forward, her adrenaline overriding fatigue and the cold. Minutes later, a stone wall became visible through the mist. She staggered toward it.
The wall seemed to be part of a large building with colored glass windows and a steepled roof. She followed the wall, searching desperately for an entrance. After rounding a corner, she arrived at a set of huge wooden doors built at the top of a short flight of stairs. The shadow flew low overhead and a monstrous, piercing scream followed in its wake.
Climbing the stairs, Kara stopped and cried out as something fell on her head. It’s on me, it’s on me! She rolled around on the stairs, hands thrashing at her unseen attacker.
Another scream sounded, but it was from somewhere high above. She stopped fighting and stared up. A clump of snow fell from the roof and landed beside her. She ran her hand through her hair and found it full of the stuff. Just snow. Perhaps the shadow had knocked some off the roof and it had landed on her head.
The scream drew closer. Kara leapt back to her feet and pushed on the doors. They fell off their hinges and crashed to the floor. Flakes of snow blew in all directions and several spears of ice fell from the edge of the roof and shattered around her. The sky darkened as the flap of giant wings drew near.
The sound was almost on top of her when she darted inside. A high-pitched cry of frustration echoed through the stone building and for an instant, the light from the Sun disappeared as the shadow flew past the entrance with a great whoosh.
Kara waited to see what would happen but her fear began to ebb until it was little more than an uncomfortable presence in the background. When she got her breath back she brushed herself off.
Her eyes swiftly adjusted to the dim light. She’d entered a large room filled with pews. A filthy, frozen carpet ran along the center of the room and ended at a pulpit. Colored glass windows were built high up in the walls on either side. Light from outside shone through them, revealing pictures in the glass. One was of people bowing to a white-robed man who stood on a hill, arms raised to the Sun. Another was of a bearded man with a halo of gold around him. He looked down from the sky, his features as cold as the icy air.
Who was he? The missing One God spoken of in the sermons?
Kara moved away from the door and trudged toward the pulpit. When she got there, she collapsed beside it and curled into a ball and shivered.
The creeping mist from outside followed her through the doors and inexorably made its way toward her. “Oh, go away,” she snapped and got back to her feet.
She searched for another way out and spied a door built into the back wall of the room. With no other exit in sight, she went toward it.
Her ears rang with another scream. Kara backed away until her back hit the door. A moving black mass of shadowy tendrils raced across the ground out the front of the building. Then timber and stones flew inward as the shadow slammed into the front wall.
Dark claws reached for her through the flying debris.
Kara turned and shouldered the door. It shattered and her momentum sent her headlong down a long flight of stairs. Curling into a ball, she rolled to the bottom and came to rest on an icy marble floor.
The ground shuddered, dust fell from the ceiling and the roar of falling walls filled her ears. The shadow let out a long, enraged wail. Rubble crashed down the stairs as the shadow frantically fought its way through the collapsing building to reach her. Winded from the fall, Kara crawled away from the stairs toward an open door.
Entering the next room, she sank wearily onto her stomach and prayed the roof would not cave in on her. After long minutes, the building stopped shaking and a profound silence fell.
Kara sat up and groaned. She was covered in dozens of scrapes and bruises and her hands ached from the cold. The pain reminded her she was still alive.
Her eyes had already adjusted to the absolute darkness to a remarkable degree. Dust filled the chilled air and grit crunched between her teeth. She breathed through part of her gown and got back to her feet. Limping down a short hallway, she entered a larger room. It reminded her of the catacombs carved into the rock under the part of the capital where her mother was entombed.
In Stelemia the dead were laid to rest in rows of stone or iron sarcophaguses. Here the coffins were made of tree-wood—something Kara had only seen once—and set in alcoves in the wall. Some were shrouded in tapestries so old they’d deteriorated to faded fragments of cloth.
Kara limped toward one to get a closer look but froze when the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. The temperature suddenly increased and a light bulb flickered to life on the cracked ceiling. Kara backed against a coffin, heart pounding, muscles tense. What was happening?
Footsteps sounded on the ruined stairs. Someone was coming!
Hide. I have to hide. There was another door at the far end of the crypt. She hurried toward it, but it was already too late. People began to flood into the room from where she’d first entered.
In her haste to flee, she fell over a piece of rubble and landed flat on her face. Dazed, Kara looked around to see the people racing toward her. They didn’t slow their pace as they neared and she dove out of their way to avoid being trampled underfoot.
What were they doing? None of them even glanced at her as they hurried past. Was she invisible? Her hair still stood on end an
d an icy fear pumped through her body with every beat of her heart.
Were these the ghosts that haunted the ruins of this frozen world?
Kara studied the people as they hurried by. They were strangely dressed and spoke in a language she’d never heard before. There were men, women and children, some dark skinned, others light. Many carried bags and blankets.
The last two people who entered were a man dressed in a long, flowing, white robe and... No, the second figure wasn’t a man—at least not one of flesh and blood. The second was made of metal and walked with a strange, elongated gait. Its feet went clank when they touched the floor and when they rose again they made a whirring sound.
The metal man was the last to walk by, but even he didn’t seem to see her. He said something in a monotone voice and the robed man glanced at him over his shoulder and said something back.
Kara called after them. “Please, can you help me?”
Neither responded but walked to the where the rest of the people had gathered around the door at the far end of the crypt. Not knowing what else to do, Kara followed them.
The people at the door looked frightened and held one another as they jabbered away in their strange language. Many were crying—even the men—while others appeared to be in shock, rocking back and forth on their feet.
The group parted for the robed man and his metal companion. The robed man removed something from inside his robes. Kara stopped in her tracks. He held a thin, metallic card like the artifact around her neck. Unlike hers, his glowed a tranquil white.
Kara’s mouth fell open. The man held the card up, as if to allow her to get a good look at it. Then he swiped it through a box on the wall beside the door.
With a hissing noise, the door slid open. The people yammered away excitedly and filed into the well-lit room beyond.
Was she meant to see this? Was this why she was still stuck in this visiondream?
After the last person exited the crypt, Kara raced up to the door. Hardly stopping to think, she took her artifact and swiped it through the same box the robed man had used. After a moment, the door started to slide shut.
Heir to a Lost Sun: A Caverns of Stelemia Novel Page 17
