Neverwylde (The Rim of the World Book 5)
Page 6
“Kelen!”
A second discharge hit a Hoov creature charging at her, sending pieces of the thing flying. More blood rained over her, pelting her face and body with gruesome remnants.
“Go left!”
She turned automatically, running as fast as she could as blaster shots zinged overhead. She was aware of furries scattering to avoid the gunfire and chaos.
When she reached the tunnel leading out of the chamber, she hesitated, reluctant to enter the dark throat, when a figure loomed out of the blackness and enveloped her within strong arms.
“Kelen!” Kyber’s voice broke with emotion as he held her tightly against him. Kelen shivered, too overcome to reply or to do anything else other than throw her arms around his waist.
“Reunion later!” Cooter yelled above them. “The panel’s to your left, Kyber! Fourteen meters. Go!”
They hustled under cover fire to the panel. When they reached it, Kyber tossed her onto the platform and slapped the white light before she could object. The world went from red to hazy to pale as she reappeared inside the ice temple.
A pair of hands gripped her arms and hauled her off the rock. Kelen found herself immediately surrounded by Jules and Sandow, who hugged her tightly.
“You’re alive! The signal was real! You’re alive!” Jules crowed and planted a kiss in her hair despite the crap embedded in it. She gave the two men a quick squeeze in return, then turned her attention back to the rest of the crew.
“Kyber! Where’s Kyber and the others?” She twisted around, searching for the platform and sign of Kyber.
Immediately, a beloved figure appeared on the rock. Kyber jumped off and swept her back into his embrace. His mouth came over hers in a kiss that erased all thought from her mind. The world around them vanished. The cold and the wind momentarily disappeared. All she was aware of was the feel of him overwhelming her until she couldn’t breathe.
Her world centered again. Her racing heart slowed and she melted against him. They were together again, and that faint spark of hope grew brighter, diminishing the darkness which had been surrounding her.
Finally breaking away from his lips, she gasped. Kyber buried his face in the curve of her neck and she realized he was trembling. Taking his face between her hands, she leaned back to gaze up into his eyes and saw moisture gathered there. “Hey.” She smiled, giving him her most loving smile. He tried to reply, but his voice caught in his throat. Instead, he took one of her hands and kissed the palm.
Over his shoulder she saw the others had finally gathered. They were trying to avert their eyes from the couple, but she also knew they were waiting to welcome her back to the fold. Reluctantly, she withdrew from Kyber’s grasp and limped over to the others, who took turns hugging her, including the Seneecians. When she reached Cooter, she kissed his cheek. “Thank you for bringing the cavalry.”
The man blushed. “For a moment there I wondered if you needed our help. What were you beating that Hoov thing with? A rock?”
Kelen laughed. “A bowl.”
“You’re joshing us,” Fullgrath remarked. “A bowl? Like the kind you eat out of?”
She nodded, when she caught sight of Dox. The little man was half-hidden behind Mellori where he watched her intently, tearstains on his cheeks. Holding out her arms, she silently invited him into them. Dox hugged her so tightly, she couldn’t breathe.
“You need to thank him,” Sandow commented. “If it wasn’t for that little gizmo he planted on you, we wouldn’t have known you were alive, or even be aware of where to come look for you.”
Kelen looked into Dox’s pale face, then kissed him on the forehead. “I owe you one, sweet friend. Thank you.”
Dox gave a slight nod, but didn’t respond.
Another fierce gust of cold wind blew through the temple. Gaveer motioned behind them. “We need to get out of this weather. Shall we stay here again tonight, or go ahead and try to transport to the next temple?”
Massapa came up beside her, and she noticed the portion of panel in the Seneecian’s hands. “What happened? The panel’s broken?” A glance at the transportation area confirmed the damage, and she turned to Kyber. “Did we break the panel?”
Smiling, Kyber drew her back against him. “It is a long story. Come. We will rest a while by a fire. Warm ourselves, but it may be wise to leave here before nightfall. Once Hoov’s people find their newly dead, they will come after us.”
Mellori stepped forward. “I agree with you, Kyber. But shouldn’t we go ahead and leave now, and not hang around here any longer than we need to?”
“Kelen may not be well enough—”
Kelen quickly stopped her husband. “I can make it. Trust me. I agree with Mellori. We need to leave here as quickly as possible, because I think Hoov and its people will probably search this place first. But where will we go? The panel’s broken.”
She was answered with several chuckles. Jules held up his tablet. “Don’t worry, Kel. We found a way. We found you, didn’t we?”
“You managed to teleport using a broken panel? How?”
Jules waggled the fingers of one hand. “Magic.”
Chapter 13
Hiccup
Cooter took a stance on the platform to go first and waited for Jules and Massapa to finish their delicate tinkering between the partial panel and the tablet. Kyber stood beside Kelen as she watched what was going on, but his attention was solely on her. His arm remained around her waist, his hand cradling her hip. As he drank in the sight of her face, at the signs of weariness and pain reflecting on her pale complexion, he swore to himself to never again let her go any further than a meter beyond his reach. Never again, unless he was dead. And even then he promised himself that his hand would continue to clutch her protectively.
“All right. Here we go.” Jules looked up at the security officer. “You should end up at the garden temple.”
“God willing and the creeks don’t rise,” Cooter quipped.
“Same rule applies,” Fullgrath added. “Stay on the rock and come back here to tell us if you landed there.”
“Will do. Hit it.”
Jules tapped the tablet. There was a soft clicking noise until Cooter slowly faded from view. Watching the man vanish, something niggled in the back of Kyber’s mind, but it was Dox who voiced it.
“Different.”
Sandow and Kelen glanced at the little man. It was Fullgrath who frowned and asked for clarification. “What do you mean?”
Instead of responding, Dox shook his head and kept his thoughts to himself.
Kyber felt Kelen heave a sigh of relief when Cooter reappeared. This time Kyber noticed the gradual fade-in. Although it hadn’t been as evident the last time they bypassed the panel, he dismissed this new development as a side effect of them circumventing the broken controls.
“You’re right on the money, Jules. It’s the garden temple, for sure,” Cooter reassured them. “Right now the coast looks clear, but we all know that won’t last if those eye worms, or clickers, or whatever get a whiff of us.”
“How is the weather?” Kleesod queried.
“Temperate, as far as I could tell. No wind.”
“Any place warmer than here sounds good to me,” Mellori drily remarked, eliciting a chuckle from the others.
“Awright. Send me back, Jules. I’ll hold down the fort.”
The odd clicking sound came again and Cooter slowly faded from sight. Massapa took a stance on the platform.
“I think it would be wise if I and Kleesod and Gaveer joined him next,” the Seneecian explained. Kyber nodded, giving his agreement. His fellow crew members were going to back up the security officer, in the event any creatures tried to attack while they were transporting over.
Like Cooter, the three Seneecians eventually disappeared. Once the last of his crew members were dispatched, Kyber laid a hand on Kelen’s shoulder. “I will go next, and you follow me.”
She smiled in answer and gave his hand a squeeze.
Slowly, Kyber watched, his eyes glued to Kelen, as the air around him fogged and grew dimmer.
And stopped.
He blinked in confusion, aware that he was half-in, half-out of transporting all the way. Sandow remarked on it, confirming the problem.
“What’s happening, Jules? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” The man’s fingers flew over the tablet’s screen. Dox went over to peer over the man’s arm. After a few more seconds, the world continued to gray as Kyber heard Jules remark, “There. That should do it.”
It took him a stunned moment to realize where he’d landed. Instead of remaining where he stood, Kyber stepped off the platform and stared around at his surroundings.
He’d ended up at the underground lakes, beside one of the large towers which braced the banks on either side of the large bodies of water. A quick glance around showed he was alone, thankfully. Except for those lake monsters, which haven’t sensed me yet.
This was wrong. He shouldn’t be here. Cooter had said he’d ended up at the temple, not here at the lakes. Which could only mean one thing.
The partial portal was malfunctioning.
The sound of something clicking alerted him to the fact that someone was appearing on the platform. Whirling around, he waited, anxious to see who was following him. Waves of relief poured through him when Kelen finally solidified into view. As soon as the sound stopped, he leaned over and took her by the arm to help her off the platform.
Kelen gazed about in confusion. “Why are we at the lakes?”
“I believe the portal is faulty.”
“Is anyone else here?”
“Not that I can tell. I am reluctant to call out, to see if anyone else appeared here, because of the creatures beneath the waters. Tell me, did you fade partially and then appear to stop in mid-transfer, the same way I experienced it?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Kyber, Cooter said he’d landed in the temple. Is that where the others went?”
“We can only assume. Who was to go after you?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced around the chamber. “I don’t think anyone else is here. I don’t believe Cooter or your people would desert this place. They would remain here and wait for all of us to gather before moving on.”
“I agree. That is why I believe we are the only—”
He was interrupted by that familiar clicking sound. Pulling Kelen closer to him, they watched as another figure inevitably appeared, albeit very slowly. More slowly than what he and Kelen experienced.
Dox smiled when he spotted them waiting. Kelen quickly grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him off the rock slab. The young man immediately realized the error.
“Landed wrong?”
“That’s one way to put it,” she answered. “There appears to be a glitch in the connection between that piece of a panel and Jules’ tablet.”
“I wonder what Cooter and my men are thinking right now.” Kyber frowned in thought. “They must be worried why none of us are following them.” Like her, he had to raise his voice in order to be heard above the sound of the water falling from one body of water to the other.
“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Kelen noted. “Once we’re sure everyone has gone through and landed somewhere, we’ll use the portal here to join them.” She smiled at Dox. “Where is it located again?”
Instead of answering, Dox walked over to the tower and slid open a small door which protected the controls from getting wet. His expression went from affable to devastated, and Kyber felt his gut tighten. Rather than ask what was wrong, he hurried over to see for himself.
The panel had been destroyed. The buttons were smashed, and bits of the teleportation device were scattered on the ground at the foot of the tower. Furthermore, the remaining controls were saturated with water from the mist coming off the waterfall.
“Well, damn,” Kelen softly exclaimed. “Looks like we’re going to have to hoof it by foot up to the temple. We just need to wait first to see who else transfers here before we leave.”
Kyber turned to Dox, who was examining the damage. “Is there a chance you can fix that? Or temporarily rig it so we can transport up to the temple?”
Dox sighed loudly. “Doubtful.”
“At least we know that getting split up isn’t going to be a major issue,” Kelen said. “Since Jules can track us through our transmitters, we’ll inevitably join up again. It’s only a matter of where and when.”
Kyber touched her shoulder, gazing down at her in earnest. “Do you still have your transmitter? You did not lose it during your battle back with Hoov’s people?”
“I should still have it.” She shoved a hand into her uniform’s vest pocket. “I put it right he— Oh, hello! What’s this?” She slowly pulled her hand out to reveal the tiny furred creature huddled in her palm. “Five! What did you do? Take refuge in my pocket? Are you okay, little guy?”
The creature purred softly in response but didn’t move.
“Hungry,” Dox announced.
“We all are,” Kelen replied. “We’re also tired and need to rest.”
“No.” The little man pointed to the creature. “He said he’s hungry.”
Chapter 14
Intelligence
Kelen stared at Dox in surprised. “You know what Five said? You understood it? Without a translator?”
Dox blinked. His expression was one she knew so well. It was the one that silently rebuked, “I said I did. Why are you doubting me?”
The little man held out a hand to the small furry. Five crawled into his palm without any signs of reluctance and clutched the front of his uniform. It shook itself, resulting in its fur sticking up in tufts. Water droplets glittered like stars over its body.
“Kelen, what is that?” Kyber questioned.
“I call them furries. I don’t know what they call themselves, but I’m alive because of them.” She turned wide eyes to her husband. “There is so much I have to tell you! These creatures, they’re the ones responsible for the glyphs in the tunnel walls!”
“What?”
“I…”
She started to explain when he interrupted her. “This is not the place or the time to go into details.” Kyber glanced over at the platform. “There should have been more coming through by now.”
“Maybe they fixed it and the others are up at the temple.” Kelen wrapped her arms around herself. Kyber must have noticed and drew an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. “Maybe we should start making our way up to the temple.”
“You are assuming everyone else is there,” he commented, and he was right. If they’d been split up two ways, it was conceivable they’d been scattered to who knew how many platforms.
“So, I guess you’re suggesting we remain here and wait for them to come find us?” She peered up over her shoulder to look at him. But instead of answering, he was staring past her. Kelen turned her head to find Dox and Five nose-deep inside the shattered inner workings of the panel board inside the tower. If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear the two were discussing the problem. “Kyber, is it my imagination, or is Dox and Five trying to work out the problem with the transporter?”
“I was thinking the same thing. Kelen, check to make sure you still have the transmitter.”
A quick check of her pocket confirmed she did. “All right. So we stay put and let them come to us. We can’t stay right here out in the open. I vote we take shelter inside where the baths are.” At the mention of the hot water baths, she stared at the bloodstains on her arms and back of her hands. “It’ll feel good to clean this crap off.”
“Dox? A word, please.”
The little man leaned back from the panel to give Kyber his full attention. Five sat perched on Dox’s shoulder, one tiny clawed paw grasping Dox’s ear for balance. Staring at them, Kelen was struck by how natural the twosome appeared together.
Kyber continued. “Do you think you can fix the panel? At least well enough for us to use in the event we need to leave here in an emergency?”
“Don’t know.”
Kyber sighed. “We cannot stay out here. We are going inside the tunnel where the baths are located, and wait for Jules and the others to get here. Kelen, hand him your transmitter.”
Reaching inside her pocket, she retrieved the small object and held it out to Dox. To her surprise, the little man refused to take it.
“Got my own.”
“No. I want you to finish it. Finish doing what you intended for it to do,” Kyber clarified.
Dox gave a shrug and stuffed it inside his own vest pocket, when Kelen caught sight of something past him. A disturbance on the lake’s surface. She alerted them to it.
“We need to leave here now. I think the lake monster is on to us.”
Quickly, they retreated down the path, toward the opening to the tunnel system leading to the baths. Kyber led the way, his talons extended in case they met someone or something. But the inner corridor appeared empty and undisturbed since they had taken refuge there weeks before. Even the fire pit looked as if it hadn’t been used.
While Kyber gathered several of the flammable stones to set in the pit, Kelen turned to Dox. “Do you happen to have a lighter—”
Dox produced what seemed to be a small makeshift blaster before she could finish and handed it to her. She peered at the object, then raised an eyebrow at him. “What is this?”
“Lighter.”
“Is it also a blaster?”
A grin lifted one corner of his mouth. “Will be.”
She heard Kyber chuckling behind her. Smiling, she tossed the object to him and watched as her husband ignited the rocks. She took a seat on the ground to watch the fire grow, infusing the rocks with heat. Even though the tunnels here weren’t as cold as what they’d experienced at the ice temple, her body continued to feel chilled and stiff.
Dox settled on the opposite side of the pit and began unburdening himself of the bundles looped over his shoulders. Five meandered around the perimeter of the small cavern, finally choosing a spot in the furthest corner. By the way it squatted, Kelen assumed it had selected that area to relieve itself. What she wasn’t prepared for was to see Five pile loose dirt over its excrement. In effect, covering the evidence.