by T. C. Edge
“What’s going on?” I hear Ajax ask.
I don’t answer, but move up the steps towards the door. I hold it shut, and look out through one of the cracks, and am greeted with nothing but a wall of dark, churning sand.
Behind me, Ajax gets his answer from Vesuvia.
“It’s a sandstorm,” she says, clicking on her torch and shining it up the passage. There’s a clear tension in her voice. “We should block the entrance.”
I turn and move back down the short staircase. “Block the entrance? But we need to get moving.”
“We can’t,” she says. “Not in this. It’s much too dangerous.”
“But…it’s dangerous staying here too,” I say. “We can’t stay...”
“We have no choice,” comes Velia’s voice. She moves forward, carrying her bag and mine, and walks past me up the stairs. She fixes the bags against the door, holding it shut. “We have to wait this out, and hope it doesn’t last long…”
She comes back down the stairs and gathers her sister and Ajax’s bags, adding them to the others. The rattling stops, replaced by the incessant howling of the wind, and the spitting of the sand as it beats against the blocked wood.
Velia moves back down and takes her position over by the rock wall. We all do the same, returning to where we were sleeping.
“We might as well try to get some more rest,” says Velia. “We can’t have been sleeping long…it’s not yet dawn. Hopefully the storm will blow over quickly.”
Ajax’s voice comes from the other side of the cave.
“And how long do these storms normally last?” he asks irritably.
Velia’s answer doesn’t come immediately. She delays a second, unable to find a clear response. “It depends,” she says. “Some can last hours. Others can last days. We just have to hope it’s the former…”
Her words put an end to any further speculation.
I lie back down where I was before, my mind still foggy and tired. But I know that it’ll be hard to sleep with the howling outside, knowing that every hour delayed will worsen our condition. With all of our torches turned off, and the moonlight blocked now by the storm, the cave plunges into a deep darkness. And in that darkness, my mind starts to tumble back into a restless and uneasy sleep.
It’s cracked and broken, and I find myself constantly waking with blurred images lingering in my mind. I forget them as soon as they come, however, nothing sticking out here in the desert. Soon enough, when I wake for a final time, I see cracks of yellow light creeping in from outside as the sun rises. But still, the howling wind remains, the door still being ceaselessly attacked by the brutal sands.
When the others wake, I see the same disappointment descend over their eyes. The storm hasn’t abated. If anything, it’s grown worse over the last few hours, the wind battering harder and wailing louder as its assault continues.
As the morning draws on, my mind starts to turn to the prospect of getting down into the mineshaft.
“Maybe there’s another way out,” I say. “A way up into the hills?”
The girls don’t consider such a thing likely. Still, they humour me, perhaps in a bid to keep my mind busy, and help me to set about repairing the lift. Using some old pieces of rope, we fix it together, making it sturdy, before I test it with my weight. I climb on as it hovers precariously over the dark abyss. It cracks and creaks, threatening to give way.
I see it coming just before it breaks apart, the wooden slats snapping and dropping into the darkness. Clearly, Ajax does too, his strong arms reaching out and grabbing me as I leap to the side. He pulls me back up to safety, just as the sound of the broken lift clatters down the wall of the tunnel, hitting the earth with a loud thud that echoes up to our ears.
It sounded like it was a long way down.
In the end, our efforts were in vain, and only served to waste good energy. Before long, our remaining water stores are starting to run dry, a problem most keenly felt by Ajax who is growing weaker by the hour. As he sits to one side, the rest of us gather together, whispering our way towards a solution.
“This storm isn’t letting up,” says Velia. “We’re going to have to chance it out there, break to the other side and hope it’s not too far.”
“We know there’s higher ground close by,” adds Vesuvia. “We were getting near before we stopped here. The storm should be kept mainly to the plains. If we reach higher ground we can escape it.”
I have little to add, and find myself looking from one girl to the next thanking the heavens for their presence. I consider myself an assertive young man, but this landscape is alien to me, and the threats that it brings are those I’ve never encountered. Without these girls, Ajax and I would surely die out here. Not even our Watcher powers could prevent that.
Feeding Ajax up with a little more water from their stores, the girls set about preparing us for departure. We fetch our bags once more, fastening them to our backs and discarding anything we don’t need to lessen their weight. I ditch half of my clothes, keeping only a couple of garments, mainly to use as wrapping for the file.
Velia fetches an old rope from the lift, stiff in places and rotten in others, and begins wrapping it around her waist. She then moves to her sister, wrapping it around hers, before doing the same with Ajax and then myself. All linked together into a chain, she turns to us before leading us out.
“If one of us falls, we’ll all feel it,” she calls. “The rope will keep us together out there. Look after each other and we’ll be fine.”
She speaks like a natural leader, her hazel eyes firming up as she looks to each of us. We nod in response, our bodies wrapped up tight in our cloaks and masks and goggles. Pulling her own mask over her face, she nods to us one final time before turning towards the stairs and leading us out into the raging storm.
From my vantage point at the back, I see everything unfold. As soon as Velia steps out, she braces herself for a barrage from the right. The wind hits her hard, almost knocking her down as she crouches low to give her a more stable body position.
Following behind, Vesuvia does the same. When Ajax steps forwards, he goes low too, having to fight harder than he normally would due to his weakening body. At the back, I adopt the same pose as we enter into the deafening shroud.
At the front, Velia quickly becomes enveloped by the swirling sand, her body little more than a blur. Even Vesuvia, only metres away, is hard to see. Only Ajax, right ahead of me, remains clear enough to fully make out.
We turn left, and begin moving across the desert, working our way past the entrance to the mine and back on the path we’d previously set. Now, however, the girls are going to find navigation impossible. Should they lose their bearings out here, they’ll never find them again, and we might find ourselves re-treading our steps.
All we can do is use the mine as a landmark and continue in the direction we were going when we stopped. We march on, led by Velia, the rope between us sometimes slackening and sometimes growing taut as we each alter our pace. I stay as close as possible to Ajax, watching his step closely as he lumbers on, battling the winds.
Somehow, it keeps my mind focused, keeps the same weariness and exhaustion from taking me. I watch him, step for step, and keep note of his stride as we go, passing across the flat desert sands as our bodies are continually buffeted by the bitter winds.
By my reckoning, we’re keeping a fairly straight path, only deviating when we need to pass by or around a rocky outcrop. The land rolls and undulates slightly as we go, sand dunes built up by the wind as it alters the landscape. Keeping to a straight path, we’re forced to climb a high, slippery knoll, Ajax and I struggling along through the soft surface due to our heavier weights. The girls find it easier, their feet not sinking as deep, pulling us along with the rope as we work as a team to clear the summit.
Yet there are dangers out here that even Velia can’t see.
With the sandstorm still obscuring our visibility, she doesn’t see it coming, all of our ability
to search the Void limited in these conditions. Perhaps she wouldn’t even on a clear day, a trap set by the desert itself to consume any passers by foolish enough to enter its fatal web.
As Velia steps forward at the summit of the dune, I see her begin to sink quickly into the earth. Attached by the rope, Vesuvia jolts forward, pulled on by her bodyweight. And as their momentum passes down the line, Ajax and I find ourselves being pulled suddenly on as well.
Instinctively, I hold back and take the strain. Ajax, too, mustering his strength, fixes his feet into the sand as both of the girls begin to get enveloped into the earth.
“Quicksand!” I hear Ajax cry on the wind, suddenly alert and alive and heaving with all his might.
I lean back with my full weigh, gripping the rope tight and anchoring the four of us in place as Ajax’s powerful arms begin drawing the rope in. Through the roaring wind, I can barely hear Vesuvia screaming out as Velia continues to disappear before her eyes. Soon, through the mist, I can only see the top of her head sticking out of the yellow surface of the dune.
I grit my jaw at the sight, and call forward to Ajax: “On three…HEAVE!”
I see him nod ahead of me, and begin to count down, and when I reach ‘three’, we pull together with all our might. Inch by inch, I see Velia emerge from the sand, unable to do anything but hold on for dear life. Vesuvia, too, half her body stuck, can do little but hope we’re strong enough to save them.
Once more, I call for us to heave, and once more we haul the girls further out. Soon, Vesuvia is back on solid earth, scrambling out and adding her strength to the cause. With a final roar, we all pull together, my legs and arms burning as I empty the tank and feel Velia come free of the desert’s grip.
As we pull, however, I feel my body give way. Ahead of me, Ajax too begins falling backwards, his momentum carrying him right into me. He hits me hard, and together we go tumbling backwards, rolling over and over down the side of the hill, our bodies battered as we go.
I don’t know how long it lasts for, but it seems to be forever. Down we go, thirty, forty, fifty metres back. We don’t stop, caught in a tumble dryer as we continue down the seemingly endless hill, nothing arresting our momentum.
Then, suddenly, the ground evens out, and we smash right into a large rock fixed to the desert floor. I feel the wind knocked right out of me, and look to see Ajax lying prostrate on the earth, a cut oozing blood on the side of his head.
My mind stars to blur, my vision losing all shape. I feel for the rope that continues to connect us, and lift it up to find a frayed and broken end hanging off the front of Ajax’s stomach, the connection to Vesuvia severed as we pulled the girls out.
And as I feel the dry and broken fibres, I begin to drop to the floor, my vision turning to nothing but mud before me.
I sink into the sand, unable to stop the flood of darkness from swamping me. And slowly but surely, the howling wind fades away, and a blackness descends down over my eyes.
3
A Welcome Face
I taste dirt.
Sand covers my lips, some getting into my mouth. I gasp and breathe in a full gulp of air and lift my head from the desert floor. In my ears, I hear no howling anymore. On my face, I feel no blistering grains of sand assaulting me.
Instead, I hear a voice, shrouded in mist, filtering into my ears: “Theo…Theo…”
My senses are blurred, my mind shrouded. I feel the sensation of a hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me. My body is pulled up out of the sand, and my eyes begin to open.
Light spills in. Bright light from the sun, my goggles discarded during the fall. I squint and see a shadow right above me. And behind, two others step into view.
“Theo, are you all right?” comes the voice again.
Slowly, a face begins to take shape. Sharp features, keen eyes, a fierce countenance I’ve come to know well.
“Athena?” I whisper.
I see my mentor’s thin lips spread into a smile.
“Welcome back, Theo,” she says.
I’m lifted up further, and the two other shadows come into view. Velia and Vesuvia stand ahead of me, watching with worried eyes. In Velia’s hand I see a bottle. She steps forward and puts the opening to my lips, sending cool water down my throat.
The effect is immediate. I feel life beginning to fill me again.
My eyes open fully now, and I take in my surroundings. I’m sat next to a rock, the long sand dune rising up ahead of me. The storm has receded, the air now calm and hot under the morning sun. I turn to my side and see an area of messed up sand. In it is a patch of blood.
“Ajax!” I say, my memory flooding back. I turn to Athena. “Where’s Ajax!”
“He’s fine,” she says in her customary calm manner. “He’s in the jet getting attention.”
I look over her shoulder, and see that her jet plane is parked nearby on a patch of harder earth. The ramp is down, footprints trailing back and forth from where I’m sat.
“What happened?” I ask, racking my brain for further details. “How did you find us?”
“I’ve been searching for you for the last couple of days. Ever since you failed to appear in the area for your final fight. I had a vision of you out here…thankfully the girls were able to flag me down as I wasn’t sure exactly where you were.”
“You were there?” I ask. “In the arena? I thought I saw you…”
She begins nodding, and a smile of pride appears on her face. “I told you, Theo, that I’d be watching. I had to stay incognito, but I saw you all fight. You were all impressive out there.”
She turns to the girls, who smile at her. It’s obvious that they know each other a little, most likely through Troy. In some ways, they remind me of her, both of them assertive and strong willed, particularly Velia.
A sudden thought enters my head, and I reach behind my back to find that my bag is no longer attached.
“My bag!” I say.
Velia calms me. “It’s OK, it’s on the jet. The file is safe.”
I let out a sigh of relief as I turn to explain everything to Athena. She doesn’t need my explanation, the girls have already told her.
“I know, I know,” she says. “I was alerted to the column of smoke coming from Baron Reinhold’s compound. I knew then that something was going on. I went there to find you but found nothing but a ruin. It’s a miracle I found you all out here.”
“The file…you know about the file?”
“The girls told me,” she says. “We’ll get it back to Petram and take a closer look. You can fill me in on everything else along the way.”
Weakly, I stand to my feet, and together we move towards the jet. Inside, I find Ajax at the back, lying down on a medical table, his head being sewn up by a doctor. His eyes are open, though, as I walk over to him and lay my hand down on his arm.
“Looking good there, AJ.”
He smiles up at me.
“That was a close call, huh…”
I laugh. “Sure was. How’s he doing, doc?”
The doctor continues to work and talk at the same time.
“He’ll be just fine. The cut’s deep but it’ll heal up nicely. Bit of concussion, but no permanent damage.”
“You don’t know him like I do, doc,” I laugh. “He’s been damaged since birth.”
The doctor raises a smile as he adds the finishing touches to his work.
“OK, all done,” he says as Ajax sits back up, a bandage now wrapped around his head.
“Another scar to add to your growing collection,” I say. “You’ll catch up with Link soon.”
The mention of his father brings an immediate reaction to both of us. We walk briskly back to the front of the jet, where Athena sits speaking with the pilot.
“You boys ready to go?” she asks as she sees us enter.
“Have you heard from my dad?” Ajax asks quickly.
“And Drake?” I add.
She shakes her head. “I’ve been off comms channels for the la
st few days. The last I heard they’d had no tangible success. But that may not matter now with what you’ve learned. Come, let’s talk it through.”
She gives the order to the pilot to take off as she leads us back into the main cabin. We all take seats and, for the next half hour, explain exactly what we know.
I take the lead, covering everything from our meeting with the girls, to the journey to the compound, and the discovery of the clones. Her eyes grow increasingly dark as I speak, the mention of Augustus Knight bringing up old memories from two decades ago.
“Four clones you say?” she asks, a deep and anxious frown hovering over her eyes.
We all nod together.
“Knight’s Terror has been training them for years,” I say “The way he spoke about them…they sound unstoppable.”
“And Knight’s Terror? The Baron? What happened to them?”
“Theo killed the Watcher,” says Velia.
Athena’s eyes widen as she looks at me.
“You killed Knight’s Terror?”
“I got lucky,” I say. “He had us all beat…but your gift, the dagger, it saved me.”
“Well done,” she says. “All of you have done more than we could ever have asked or hoped for. And…the Baron?”
“He escaped before the compound was destroyed. We have no idea where he went.”
She leans back, processing everything. Meanwhile, I reach over and draw out the file from my bag and hand it to her. Her eyes scan the front.
“The Seekers of Knight,” she says. She lifts her eyes to us. “This is referring to the clones?”
We nod. “The Baron talked about Knight’s legacy…how his death was never going to stop him. He wants to bring this world down, Athena, create chaos. These Seekers are at the heart of it.”
She flicks through a few pages and comes to the same conclusion as Velia and myself. “We’ll get this to Petram and see if we can decipher it. But you’ve helped our cause tremendously, all of you. I’m proud to call you my students.”
I can’t help but smile, my own actions, and those of the others, having a tangible impact on our cause. But it’s short lived as the simple realisation dawns: we’re just scratching the surface, and truly, we have no idea as to what is going to happen next.
