The Witch; Stronghold; Underworld

by Ky Tyrand

  Ki’ara was wedged in so tight she could hardly move a muscle. And with her mask filling with water, thinking clearly was out of the question.

  A “limited inter-dimensional air supply”. That was what Je’nna had told her about the helmet. But all it seemed like was churning bubbles.

  When fizzing tickled her neck, Ki’ara realized that it was her own hair causing the leak – preventing a seal where it pushed out the bottom of her helmet. While her Mu’turi tried to fill the gaps, every time Ki’ara shifted she created more. The time it took her Mu’turi to adjust was enough for air to escape and water to enter.

  Unable to move, Ki’ara tried not to panic as more tiles piled up behind her, adding to the stress against her back and shoulders. The water alone felt like it weighed about a million tons. With the rubble heaping against her, Ki’ara couldn’t help but wonder how much pressure her armor could take before popping.

  The water level in her mask crept over her panting mouth, nearly making her cough as she took a deep breath through her nose.

  Time to panic.

  Though the girl’s arms were pinned in an awkward position, one of her fists was pressed against the long, oval shaped stone that was blocking everything up. And atop that wrist was her Niksuru. The angle wasn’t perfect, but it was all she had…

  Ki’ara blasted a beam of Blue Energy straight into the stone. Despite the flowing water fighting to cool the solid surface, her weapon melted clean through, sending thin strings of cooling lava downstream. But, with only a tiny range of motion, even bending her wrist as far as she could didn’t allow her to put much more than a short slot through the rock. There was no way she would be able to cut it in half.

  She was running out of breath. Something needed to give.

  Just weaken it…

  With water now sloshing into her ears, Ki’ara wasn’t sure if she’d heard a voice in her head, or if the words were her own epiphany. Either way, the idea was sound. She twisted the blade as far as she could reach, while the pressure continued to build up behind her.

  The Princess wondered what would give way first – the stone, her lungs, or her armor.

  A loud crack and sudden jolt told her that something broke, but in the churning chaos she couldn’t tell what it was.

  Probably me.

  She was still conscious. That was good. But it would not last if she couldn’t find some air. Her helmet was still full of water, and her will to resist inhaling was rapidly fading.

  Grinding and scraping against her armor told Ki’ara that she was moving down the waterslide amidst the clog of stones and debris. But where was it taking her? Deeper under water? To be pinned again under an even bigger heap of rocks?

  Ki’ara needed air. She was on the verge of passing out.

  Only one other thought came to her: I have to get away from the stones before they pin me again.

  But she didn’t know how.

  Nothing was making sense.

  Just like in the water under the dam…

  She was dizzy, her judgement a mess. Reality was all jumbled, and she didn’t have a clue which way was up.

  Gravity knows...

  It was all she had.

  Ki’ara opened her G.R. as wide as she could.

  11

  Je’nna nearly lost her balance as she did a double-take, confirming that she wasn’t just imagining the dark figure standing behind her.

  Through the excitement she had barely noticed the pain under her skin. Or that her feet were losing traction against the smooth, squared-off platforms. There was no need to reach for a pistol. She could tell that the Blue Energy within them was being blocked.

  It’s him.

  Up until yesterday, nothing had frightened Je’nna more than heights.

  That all changed when she had met the tattooed man that wanted to avenge his brother’s death.

  Never had she encountered a person so evil; so filled with hate. And she’d hoped to never see him again.

  Though his black mask made it impossible to know for sure, Je’nna was certain that this was Sylor. He was the same size. And Dark Matter was not an easy thing to come by. This man had it.

  “Stop,” she whispered to Petch. “We’re going to turn around.”

  “What? Why?!?”

  “We need to go the other way.”

  The boy began to tremble again, quietly repeating, “Why?”

  Je’nna looked back at the man standing at the edge of the room. He hadn’t moved. The girl couldn’t help but notice that the armor he wore was far more hi-tech than Stronghold’s Royal Guardsmen.

  Her vision began spinning in circles as she tried to maintain her equilibrium.

  “Just do it!” Je’nna refused to tell the boy that she would rather fall from these columns than let that man get his hands on her. Petch didn’t need to know that. It wouldn’t do either of them any good. He just needed to turn. “Please…”

  “Okay,” agreed Petch, reversing the direction of his shuffling pivot.

  Je’nna knew that the boy was scared. So was she. As soon as he turned, Petch would have nothing to hold onto but empty air.

  How is this going to work!?!

  The girl tried to keep her composure – to find her composure – but it seemed impossible. She needed to get it together.

  For Petch.

  The boy bravely let go of her hand, struggling to maintain his balance.

  “We can do this,” Je’nna whispered to him.

  But Sylor didn’t give them the chance.

  12

  The G.R. was working, raising Ki’ara out from the bottom of the rocks as the current continued to drag her along. The Princess pushed and fought her way up. Her head was suddenly out of the water, but her mask had yet to empty.

  Desperate for a breath, she opened her helmet. Ki’ara knew it was dangerous, but the risk of smashing her head felt less important than taking a breath of air.

  A moment later, she was funneled around a curve and promptly deposited over the edge of a waterfall.

  As water and rocks spilled over and dropped, Ki’ara – with her Grav-Regulator opened wide – floated above it, gulping every bit of air she could take into her lungs. With her head back and her arms stretched out to the sides, the Princess inhaled, again and again; not caring that the air was stagnant, or that she coughed when she drew in water from her lips and face. All that mattered was that she wasn’t drowning, or suffocating, or pinned under a mountain of rocks while drowning and suffocating.

  The girl didn’t even realize she had been floating upward, until her chest bumped against the ceiling of the cavern.

  Ever so faintly over the thunderous roar of water, Ki’ara heard her name. Someone was calling her.

  After one more huge breath, Ki’ara pushed off the ceiling and spun herself around.

  She hadn’t noticed that her Niksuru were still extended out, and the only source of light. Spread around her was a dome shaped cavern that echoed in a way that seemed to amplify the sound of the water.

  The underground river dropped a good twenty feet before splashing into a large pool of water, which took up the entire bottom of the natural chamber.

  Where it went from there, she couldn’t tell.

  “Ki’ara!”

  She spotted To’mas in the pool, not far from base of the waterfall, waving his hands at her.

  The Princess closed her G.R., lowering herself down to him. The water only came to the man’s knees, but Ki’ara stopped herself above it, hovering just over the surface.

  “To’mas, are you alright?”

  “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Most fun I’ve had in ages. Are you okay?”

  Under the blue light of her Niksuru, there was no hiding the scratches that covered Ki’ara’s armor. Though beat-up, it was obvious the Battle Harness had served its purpose. The armor and G.R. had saved her yet again.

  Everybody else’s stuff saves my life, and my own stupid hair nearly costs it.

  “
I’m alive,” she said. “And thrilled that you had a fun ride.”

  Ignoring the dig, To’mas’s eyes went to Ki’ara’s forearm. “The Inuwuru?”

  Ki’ara could feel that by some miracle the box was still where she’d fastened it. The girl lifted her hand and opened the lid, letting out a breath when she found the small metal triangle was dry and unharmed. “It’s fine,” she said, noting the man’s relief.

  Unfortunately, her crossbow didn’t fare so well. It was mixed into the pile of rubble at the bottom of the waterfall. Despite the heap of stone tiles half burying it, Ki’ara could see that the weapon was broken in two, held together only by the string. Several of the colored quarrels floated across the pool’s surface, pushed from the base of waterfall on little ripples.

  The Princess checked her sword, which her Mu’turi had somehow been able to keep fastened to her back. One side of the scabbard was scratched and gouged, and the front of the guard was bent slightly downward, but other than that it appeared to be fine.

  Ki’ara watched the water pouring over the ledge, wondering if her friends might yet be spit out. Between Je’nna’s fear of heights, and Petch’s lack of balance, Ki’ara was afraid they might be in a bad way. But they had been farther back in the room and were standing on the square stones when the ground around them had given out. There was hope.

  “So, where are we?” she asked.

  To’mas rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure, exactly.”

  “But… you’re the Traveler,” argued Ki’ara. “You’ve been everywhere.” It was a stupid thing to say, and she knew it. But she was feeling more than a little frazzled, and her heart had yet to slow down.

  “I haven’t been here,” said To’mas with a shrug. “My guess is that we’re at least two-hundred-seventy-seven feet below, and one-hundred-twelve feet Northwest, of where we fell from. Give or take.”

  “That’s your guess?” asked the Princess. “You couldn’t be more specific?”

  To’mas nodded. “Give or take.”

  “You didn’t know how far we had to go in the stairwell, and yet you know precisely where we are down here?”

  “I don’t like stairs,” he grumbled, adding something about them being the same thing, again and again; and hurting his knees, again and again.

  “Alright. So how do we get back?”

  “I’m not sure,” admitted To’mas, pointing. “It looks like the water flows out over there…”

  Ki’ara could see where the pool was swirling near one side of the cavern, but there were no openings to go along with it. At least, not above the surface. “Well, we’re not going that way,” she insisted.

  “What about the Inuwuru,” suggested To’mas. “Perhaps your mother knows the way out.”

  Ki’ara opened the lid and touched her finger to the floating triangle. “You think she’s been down here?”

  To’mas shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

  After a moment, Ki’ara shook her head and removed her finger from the small device. “No. She was too smart to end up down here.”

  To’mas frowned. “I’m sorry, Ki’ara. I didn’t think that it would by my misstep that dropped us into this pickle.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” said the Princess. “I should have been paying more attention to the memory.”

  “Too bad neither of us can see into the future,” said To’mas with a sly grin. “We might have noticed this coming.”

  The smallest snicker was all To’mas got out of Ki’ara. “What’s done is done. Let’s just find a way out of this place.”

  “Look here,” said To’mas as he waded through the water. “There’s some kind of fissure that cuts through the ceiling over here. Could be our exit.”

  Hovering motionless in the air, Ki’ara watched the man trudge through the water to a corner of the cavern. She eyed the water beneath her feet like it was carrying a disease, wishing she’d landed near something that she could push off from. Not about to ask To’mas to come back and hold her hand, Ki’ara cautiously dropped into the water.

  It only came to her knees, making her feel foolish that her teeth were clenched, and that her heart was moving faster than it should. Nevertheless, she only stayed in long enough to push off the slippery stone floor.

  Floating up and ahead to where she could pull herself along the ceiling, Ki’ara peered around the gap To’mas was referring to. It was impossible to see how far it went, but the opening at least started out in the same general direction as the water chute. There were rocks and ledges to climb from as far as the eye could see, making it a definite possibility. But there was no certainty as to where it would lead.

  “Wait, what’s that over there?” To’mas called to her, pointing across the cave.

  Ki’ara was too high up to see what he was looking at. But the G.R. unit made it easy to check out. After spinning around, Ki’ara pushed off the ceiling and shot across the large chamber.

  As she neared the far wall, the Princess spotted what To’mas had been interested in. There was a small opening – a tunnel of sorts – down near the surface. The water crept inside, submerging the bottom of the passage to an unknown depth. Not looking terribly appealing so far…

  Landing on the stone wall beside it, Ki’ara clung to an outcropping rock as she peeked inside.

  She immediately felt the pressure in her ears change and had to swallow in order to crack them. Sound was echoing oddly there, perhaps by the motion of the water alone. But she could swear she heard something else…

  Ki’ara tried to shine her Niksuru inside. But, as the glow was so intense near her face, the light from the Blue Energy didn’t penetrate as far as she’d like. Retracting the segments of plasma, Ki’ara closed her helmet and activated the Night Vision in hopes that it might offer a farther view. It did, to some degree – at least to the first bend.

  From what she could tell, the ceiling of the passage varied in height, but appeared to remain a short distance above the water’s surface. Whether it continued like that beyond her line of sight was another matter.

  Having had just about enough of water for one lifetime, Ki’ara had no interest in trying this route. Not without ruling out the alternative.

  As she was about to suggest trying the climb through the fissure first, Ki’ara once again swore she heard something – an unexpected tone – coming from the passage. She opened her helmet and re-lit her Niksuru, while plugging one ear and sticking the other to the end of the tunnel. It was hard to make anything out above the roar of the waterfall, but – “I hear… singing?”

  She noticed To’mas lurch as he waded through the water. “Ki’ara, wait…” he began splashing forward aggressively. “Get away from there!”

  “Why, what is it?” asked the girl. “The music, it’s… beautiful.”

  “No!” To’mas snapped, charging through the deepening water. “Ki’ara, get behind me!”

  “But…” the Princess closed her eyes as the melody got louder, “I think we should go this way…”

  13

  Je’nna’s Night Vision dimmed as a bright white light illuminated the hollow chamber, casting dark shadows against the far wall of the balancing duo and their frantic dance.

  The sudden flash of light made Petch jump, sending him straight upright before he bent at the waist, waving his arms like he was preparing to take flight. And Je’nna feared he might do just that.

  She tried to catch the boy, but there was nowhere to step that would give her enough leverage. By the time Petch lifted one of his prosthetic feet, it seemed there was nothing Je’nna could do to prevent him from falling.

  But she tried, nonetheless.

  The girl still had a grip on one of his hands, which she pulled back in an attempt to redirect him.

  Je’nna slid the ball of her foot over the front of her column and launched herself forward; pushing off the ledge. With all her strength she drove her body ahead, plowing into Petch with a tackle so powerful that it sent him airborne; before they both
came toppling down onto the line of square tiles.

  The hit caught Petch by surprise, and the landing was far from comfortable – but they hadn’t fallen from the stone columns. Not yet. The boy was sprawled across at least three of them, lying on the storage disk Je’nna had earlier strapped to his back.

  Je’nna was on top, clinging to his chest with a desperate grip. Her quick thinking had spared their lives for an extra moment of time.

  Long enough for Petch to tell her that everything was going to be okay.

  But she knew that it wouldn’t. Why did he have to go and say that?

  The girl braved a glance over her shoulder, tracing the light back to dark figure still standing at the edge of the chamber.

  Sylor.

  Fears of falling fought with the terror being caught by the monster.

  But it was something entirely different that won out…

  Petch deserves a chance.

  “This is where you need to be to get across,” she told the boy. “Down flat. Stay low. Roll yourself over and crawl the rest of the way – forward, not back. Do you understand?”

  “No,” said Petch, “I don’t. What about you?”

  “I’ll be right behind you, I just need to take care of something first.” She used her toes to feel for the nearest pedestal before pushing herself off his chest. “Forward, Petch, not back. No matter what.”

  “Je’nna…” There was desperation in the boy’s voice. “Where are you going? What is it that you need to do?”

  Je’nna pivoted herself up. “I need to kill Sylor,” she said, drawing her daggers.

  “Wait… What?!?” cried the boy. “Je’nna, no!” He tried to reach for her, but she was already gone.

  With blades in hand, Je’nna sprang across the small platforms, leaping them two at a time as she charged toward the light.

  14

  Ki’ara had never heard anything so beautiful.

  She didn’t mind at all that the raucous roar of the waterfall faded away. The same could be said for her companion’s incessant shouting. What is he even going on about?