Dragonlinked

by Adolfo Garza Jr.

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” Sharrah said. “Walking sticks have a very specific diet. Assuming that’s an adult, which due to its size I certainly hope it is, they generally need rose bushes or certain fruit or oak trees for food. I don’t see any of those down here.” She turned to Aeron. “Are there any openings to the land above in here?”

  “No, I haven’t found any yet. But I could have missed them or, because I haven’t finished exploring, there could be some I haven’t gotten to yet. And there have to be, don’t there?”

  “What do you mean?” Willem asked.

  “Well, there’s air down here, fresh air,” Aeron said. “As long as people have been in these caverns, harvesting, farming and living, fresh air has to be coming in from somewhere.”

  “That’s true,” Sharrah agreed. “Although, some of it could be coming from the unusual flora down here too.”

  “Well,” Aeron said, “openings would certainly explain how some creatures from above could have ended up down here.”

  Sharrah stepped off the walkway and made her way to the walking stick, being very careful about where she placed her feet. She didn’t want to accidentally crush anything underfoot. “It’s nibbling on this moss here, the one giving off a green glow. It looks like the walking sticks down here have adapted by switching their diet to this moss.” She turned back to Aeron and Willem. “This is amazing!”

  Aeron smiled. Sharrah had returned to watching the walking stick, and Willem was examining something of his own next to the walkway. Aeron kept Smoke by his side and let his friends take in the cavern. “It’s pretty much just like this all through this cavern,” he said and walked farther along the walkway.

  After a while, it was time to move on. “We should probably head off to the next one if we want to be back by when we said we would in the note,” Aeron said.

  Willem walked over to Aeron and, reluctantly, Sharrah made her way over as well.

  “I didn’t realize how much life there was down here,” Sharrah said as they walked farther through the cavern. “And how much life could exist apparently without sunlight.” She looked at a plant they were passing, a wistful look on her face. “I wonder how flora down here manage without it.”

  “It’s pretty amazing that life can exist in so many places,” Willem said. “And in so many variations.”

  Eventually they came to the end of the cavern, and Aeron uncovered his lantern. “The next stop isn’t too far, we should be there in maybe ten or fifteen minutes.” He followed the walkway into the passage.

  After several minutes, they passed a branch in the walkway, but continued along the main path. At the next branching, however, Aeron took the right path. They followed the tunnel for some time, at one point passing through a small cavern that doubled the size of the passage, though only briefly. Eventually, the passage abruptly widened out. The sense of a vast expanse was overwhelming.

  “We’re here, aren’t we?” Willem asked, quietly.

  “I feel it too,” Sharrah said.

  “Yes,” replied Aeron. “We’re here. Come with me.”

  Aeron lead them farther along the path. Though the walkway continued on, the ground below ended at a ledge with only the darkness of the cavern beyond.

  Willem paused and looked down into the darkness, being careful to keep well back from the edge of the walkway. He could see nothing in the inky black below. He gripped his lantern tighter and hurried to catch up.

  About fifteen feet beyond the ledge, the walkway ended at a circular stairwell that lead down into the cavern. Aeron took the stairs, his friends and Smoke following behind. After several turns around the stairwell, they reached the bottom and took a few steps out on the walkway.

  “We can shutter the lanterns here,” Aeron said, closing his lantern.

  Willem followed suit.

  “There’s no need to close your eyes this time. What makes this cavern amazing is different from the last one.”

  Slowly, over the next few minutes, details began to appear as their eyes adjusted. Oddly, the walkway here was apparently many feet above the ground. More of the different kinds of light-producing moss and lichens covered the floor of the cavern below them, but their soft glow abruptly ended at some sort of obstruction ahead.

  “Come on,” Aeron said, “the walkway goes a bit farther.” He continued into the cavern and Willem, Sharrah, and Smoke followed. Ahead of them was an incredible sight.

  “Is that a—” Sharrah began, but stopped in confusion.

  “A lake?” Willem finished, completely astonished.

  Aeron smiled. “I call it Lake Wonder.” He lead them along the walkway toward the lake.

  The barrier they had seen was actually comprised of dozens, maybe even hundreds, of small pools. They were each about ten feet wide and about five feet in length and descended in almost a stair-step fashion from the edge of the lake down to the moss-covered ground. Each pool was formed by a thin, ragged wall rising about two feet high, which appeared to be made of calcium deposits that had built up over an enormous amount of time. There were multitudes of the oddly shaped pools, most of which contained various types of aquatic plants that gave off soft, multihued light.

  “I see fish!” Sharrah exclaimed, pointing to one of the pools.

  Willem looked at the pool and said, “Oh! Yes, I see them too. They seem to be a little bigger than the ones we saw earlier.”

  “Which makes sense,” Sharrah said. “These pools are a bit larger, so there is more room for them to live. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they jumped from pool to pool.”

  Aeron continued to the end of the walkway, Smoke trailing behind him, and when they stopped, Smoke barked. Aeron laughed and patted Smoke on his head. “No worries boy. We’re not going for a swim.” His bark soon returned from several spots deeper in the cavern. Upon hearing the echoes, Smoke’s ears perked up and his head snapped in the directions they came from.

  Sharrah and Willem had joined them at the end of the walkway, which extended beyond the pools, and they both laughed at Smoke’s reaction.

  At the top of the pools, about twenty feet behind them, the lake itself began. The water in the lake was extremely clear and still, so they could see details quite easily. The depth of the lake was about three feet near the pools, but began to drop off several paces beyond them. There were plants in the lake as well, different from the pools, and some of them were very large. All of the plants, those in the pools as well as in the lake, gave off light. And there were various kinds of moss and strange lichen everywhere. It ran along the walls and on some of the ‘dead’ stalagmites and columns, all also giving off light of different colors.

  Motion in the water near them caught their eyes.

  “That’s a much bigger fish,” Willem noted.

  The three of them stared as a large fish swam slowly by. It appeared to be about three feet long and had a very subdued light pattern along its sides. As it passed near them it slowly opened and then closed its large mouth. Now that they were focused on the lake below, they noticed that there were also scores of smaller fish with more striking light patterns swimming around, though they seemed to be avoiding the big fish.

  “Did you see?” Sharrah asked.

  “The teeth,” Aeron said. “Yeah. That’s why I told Smoke we were not going to go swimming. I’ve seen those fish in the lake a few times before. I’m not sure they would attack people, but I’m not willing to test that.”

  Willem laughed nervously. “Me either.”

  The lake extended as far out as they could see, with occasional stalagmites and enormous columns, formed when stalactites and stalagmites met, breaking its surface. The soft light given off by the plants and mosses wasn’t enough to see very far, so exactly how big the lake actually was could not be determined.

  “It looks like the lake is about eight to twelve feet deep,” said Aeron, staring out over its great expanse. “At least as far as can be seen from here. There are lots of plants and fish in it
too, each giving off some kind of light.”

  Willem, looking down into the lake, said, “It really is Lake Wonder.” He looked back at the pools. “And it’s so quiet down here in the caverns. Very peaceful.”

  Aeron smiled and nodded. That was one of his favorite things about them.

  They spent some time walking along the ‘pier’ of the walkway looking at the various plants and fish in the pools and lake. Sharrah even lay on her stomach at one point, upper torso dangling over the edge of the walkway as she examined one of the pools below. Smoke got bored fairly quickly, however, and walked back to the part of the walkway before the pools. After a minute, he lay down, head on his paws, only his eyes tracking them as they walked about.

  “We should head on,” Aeron eventually said.

  Sharrah sighed wistfully, but she joined them as they walked back to the stairwell. Aeron and Willem opened their lanterns before they all headed back up.

  They ended up backtracking a little bit before Aeron took a branch they had passed earlier. Beyond the turn, the passageway widened a little and seemed to angle downward a bit. After several minutes, the downward trend was so great, the walkway had steps every few feet so that it kept itself level and near the ground.

  “Almost there,” Aeron said.

  Faintly at first, slowly growing in volume as they continued, a roaring sound could be heard ahead. The passage was now very wide and the floor descended so steeply that the walkway was just sections of steps leading left and then right. And eventually, what had been the floor became the wall of the passage, the steps protruding from it. Back and forth along the steps they descended.

  At some point along the way, the passage had become a cavern, the other sides of which could no longer be seen. When they reached the floor of the cavern, the roaring was louder.

  “This way,” Aeron said and headed farther in along the walkway, which ran above the floor again.

  Eventually he stopped before a point where the walkway split into two paths, one heading right and one left. The right path disappeared around a corner just ahead. Aeron motioned to Willem to close his lantern. “We’ll wait here for our eyes to adjust,” he said and closed his lantern.

  After a couple of minutes, Aeron said, “Okay, this way,” and headed down the right path of the walkway. There was light moss enough on the walls and floor to see their way. There were also occasional little mushroom-like plants or fungi along the floor adding to the soft light.

  When they rounded the corner, they saw an amazing sight. Ahead of them was an enormous waterfall, perhaps fifty feet tall. It poured out of a large, dark opening in the ceiling of the enormous cavern and fell along the wall to a large pool out of which flowed a small river.

  “Well, come on,” Aeron said, laughing. “Don’t just stand there!” He lead them along the walkway toward the waterfall.

  As they approached the base of the waterfall, their hair was occasionally blown back by a breeze that the waterfall was creating, and soft mist brushed their faces. Sharrah reached out and placed her hand into the falling water.

  “It feels wonderful, not too cold, just right!” she shouted over the roar of the falls, smiling.

  All around the pool, similar plants and fungi to what they had seen earlier grew in profusion. On the ground and along the sides of the waterfall all the way to the ceiling, moss grew thickly, much of it light moss. The occasional plant poked through the moss here and there on the walls beside the waterfall as well.

  The pool itself was dark near the waterfall, perhaps due to the flow being too strong for plants to take root. Farther from the base of the falls, however, there was plenty of plant life to be seen in the clear waters. Around the far edge of the pool, stone benches had been enchanted here and there, away from the overpowering roar of the waterfall. Aeron and Sharrah sat down at one, enjoying the beauty of the falls.

  “The air here, it’s very refreshing and peaceful,” Willem said, from behind them. “It’s almost magical.”

  Sharrah nodded in agreement.

  Aeron smiled and said, “Isn’t it great?”

  Smoke wandered over to the pool and drank some water.

  Aeron opened his satchel, removed his water skin, and took a long drink. He offered it to Sharrah. “You didn’t bring anything with you, because you weren’t planning on coming. Would you like a drink?”

  “Oh, yes, thank you,” she replied, taking the skin.

  After she took a sip of water, she pointed to a large mushroom to their right. “That mushroom there is actually edible.”

  Aeron looked at it. It had a rather striking light pattern. “I love mushrooms,” he said.

  “They normally aren’t that large. And mushrooms are also quite good for you. Lots of important vitamins and minerals in them.”

  Aeron snorted. “They’re tasty, that’s all I care about.”

  “Tasty or not, you have to be careful about eating just any mushroom that you find. Some are deadly,” she cautioned.

  “I get my mushrooms in the Dining Hall, and those are not deadly, they are delicious!” Aeron crowed.

  Sharrah laughed and took another drink from the water skin.

  Smoke pawed the water of the pool, trying to catch something in the water. He chased it along the edge of the pool.

  “Smoke!” Aeron shouted. “C’mere, boy.”

  Smoke trotted over to Aeron and licked his hand.

  “Are you having a good time?” Aeron asked him.

  Smoke barked at him and sat down, tongue lolling out of his mouth.

  Aeron laughed and patted his back.

  “Guys, look over there, to the left of the waterfall,” Willem said, pointing. “Do you see that tallish plant, the one giving off the pink light?”

  “Yeah,” Aeron said.

  Sharrah nodded.

  “Okay, look to the right of that plant, on the ground, next to that rock. Do you see the little animal?”

  “Oh, that’s a cave rat,” Aeron said. “I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of them. I usually see a lot of them when I’m exploring. And they aren’t that little, they’re bigger than a cat. It just looks small because the plants here are pretty big.”

  The cave rat was nibbling on something it held in its paws, studiously ignoring them.

  “Well, you probably make less noise than we do when you’re down here by yourself,” Sharrah noted.

  “That’s probably true,” Aeron agreed.

  Sharrah handed the water skin back to Aeron. “I just want to say, thank you for making me come along.”

  Aeron smiled at her.

  “Seriously. These places you showed us, they’re amazing. I’m glad you showed them to me. I’m glad I came along.”

  Aeron nodded in acknowledgment. “There are other caverns closer to the hall that are somewhat okay, but I saved the super-special ones for my tour. I wanted you guys to see these.”

  “They are amazing,” Willem agreed. “You weren’t kidding about them at all. They’re magical places. Thank you for sharing them.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Aeron said. He looked at the waterfall a moment and then at the pool. “This place reminds me of my mother.” Willem looked at Aeron and Sharrah looked at the waterfall.

  Aeron tilted his head to the side and said, “It’s a little odd. For some reason, I can’t remember a lot of specific things about her. True, it’s been six years since—” He shook his head and continued. “I know she loved me, would do anything for me, and I loved . . . love her. But even so, most of what I can remember are impressions.

  “I guess that’s why I feel that way about this place,” Aeron said. “It’s so calm and peaceful. You can sit here and really rest. The air,” he nodded at Willem, “like you mentioned, it’s clean and refreshing. But there is also strength here.” He looked at the waterfall. “There is strength as well.”

  “You really miss her, don’t you,” Sharrah said, turning to look at Aeron.

  “I really do,” he repli
ed.

  Willem stood behind Aeron, placed his hands on Aeron’s shoulders, and gazed at the waterfall.

  They stayed for another ten minutes or so, exploring the pool and the waterfall. But eventually, it was time to return.

  Back in his room, after they said their goodbyes and parted, Aeron lay on his bed, a large smile on his face. He was happy that his friends had enjoyed his tour.

  Dellia looked across their campfire to where her husband was talking with one of the caravan’s merchants. Though each of the traders made their own camps around the caravan, Dellia and Methon liked to host a merchant at theirs each night. It seemed to build trust and goodwill.

  The caravan had been on the road now for three days and had made good progress. They would make Caer Baronel in less than three weeks, if all went well.

  Methon laughed at something the trader said and Dellia smiled. He was such a joy to be around. She once again was thankful for her good fortune in meeting him all those years ago and even more so for their deep love of each other.

  She looked over to where their son, Altheron sat. He was smiling and talking softly with the daughter of Zeltharad, the tailor. Lillith was her name. She was a sweet girl. Altheron had made a good choice. And Lillith seemed to like him, so all the better. Dellia smiled again and took a sip from her glass.

  A guard walked up to Methon and began talking with him in a low voice. Dellia’s smile faded. Everyone had heard the news about the most recent attack. Cotter’s Grove was only a few days southeast of Caer Baronel on a quick horse, and as they drew closer to the Caer, so too did they near the unfortunate village. She took a little comfort from the fact that the guards they had, even those newly hired, were all very experienced and looked quite fit. Her husband wasn’t going to spend good money on layabouts who didn’t know their way around a sword.

  The guard nodded and walked away, and her eyes met her husband’s. He smiled wryly at her and lifted his tankard in salute. A small smile flickered across her lips and she lifted her glass to him, bowing her head slightly. She wasn’t much for praying to the gods, but she muttered a prayer to any who would listen. “Keep us safe, keep us hale, keep those damned nahual off our trail.” She smiled at her poor poetic turn of phrase and had a sip of her drink.