by Garry Spoor
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Well, regardless of what brought us here and why, I’m going to bed, and I suggest, as your doctor, you do the same.” He pulled back the flap of the tent. “Stop worrying about what you have no control over.”
He was right—she knew that, but it still didn’t ease the feeling that something wanted her on this island. Now all she had to do was figure out why.
12
They arrived back at the cave, early that morning. It wasn’t as difficult to find the second time around. Elmac studied the interlocking stone threshold while Creech strained to listen for any sounds coming from within the tunnel. Heaney did a few more earth readings around the perimeter while Boraro casually stood watch. Galan and Darfin seemed almost excited, or as excited as two Alva, who show few emotions to begin with, can seem. Kile sat with Daniel off to one side, wishing to get the whole thing over with. Now that they were on the verge of entering the temple, she was a little apprehensive. She knew what she heard yesterday, even if Heaney didn’t. Something was laughing down there, and she was afraid she could guess what it was.
The mystic stood and stepped away from the cave. “I can’t detect any magic or any form of protective wards.”
“So, it’s clear?” Boraro asked.
“As clear as I can tell, but we can’t be too careful. There’s no knowing what tricks or traps the Orceen left for us.”
“Then maybe the Orceen should go first,” Boraro said, looking at Kile.
Was that why they brought her along, because of her Orceen blood?
“I don’t think that would be necessary,” Heaney said as he came around the side of the hill. He was still wiping the dirt from his hands.
“I agree,” Elmac said. “From everything I’ve read on the Orceen, they were not a violent or malicious species. I don’t think there is anything too dangerous we have to worry about.”
“They were kin to the Ogre and fought alongside them during the Mudd Wars.” Creech said.
Elmac pointed at the Hunter. “That has never been proven.”
“Care to wager your life on that, Mystic?” Boraro grinned. “Maybe you should go first.”
“It is not his decision, nor is it yours, Garret,” Heaney said.
The white-haired Alva stepped forward. “But Master Boraro brought up a good point. If the female is of Orceen blood, should we not use every weapon in our arsenal to achieve our victory?”
“Her name is Kile, Master Darfin, and this can hardly be called a victory. We are not fighting a battle, we are simply recovering an artifact.”
“You may not be fighting a battle, sir, but we Alva have been fighting for our survival for far too long.”
“I understand your need to see this through.”
“How can you? Your home was not taken from you. You were not set adrift from the land of your fathers. You know nothing of our plight.”
Boraro laughed. “If you put that much faith in a silly little trinket, elf, you’re already lost.”
Darfin made a sudden move toward the Hunter, his hand going to the hilt of his Lann. Boraro’s sword was already in his hand. Heaney was quick enough to get between them.
“Enough,” he shouted, pushing them back.
Galan pulled his companion away. “This is solving nothing,” he said. “Are we to kill ourselves on the threshold of our goal while our enemies laugh?”
“Nobody is killing anyone,” Heaney said, trying to calm both sides down.
“If you ask me,” Creech said from behind Boraro, “I say, let the elves go first if they want it so badly.”
“Only over the blood of a vir,” Darfin cursed.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Kile jumped to her feet. “This is why I prefer to work alone.” She stormed past the combatants and entered the cave.
She was surprised nobody tried to stop her and she was nearly fifty feet down the tunnel before she realized she wasn’t even looking for obstacles or traps, not that she could see anything in the darkness. Slowing down, she let a bit of her feral side come out. It wouldn’t do to stumble blindly into a situation where she would need help, especially when she made the comment about working alone. Although, she didn’t think there would be any obstacles since everything was leading her to this one place. It was almost as if she was meant to find the Heart of Nilak. She wasn’t sure if that made her feel comfortable or scared the life out of her.
“You sense anything, Vesper?” she asked the yarrow, who was busy sniffing the air around them. She couldn’t smell anything, but she knew his nose was far more sensitive.
-Damp, nothing alive.-
Somehow, that wasn’t very reassuring.
“It’s a shame we don’t have a few bats with us. It would be nice to see where we’re going.”
No sooner had she complained, when the halls lit up around her. She spun around to see a lantern coming down the tunnel, held high above Heaney’s head.
“A rather impetuous maneuver,” he said when he got closer.
Kile wasn’t sure if he was praising her actions or reprimanding her. “I was fed up listening to you guys bickering up there.”
“Still, one does not run headlong into danger to end an argument.”
“The only danger I saw was out there. It’s simply a matter of time before Master Boraro and the Alva come to blows.”
“Yes, it has been getting a bit tense since we arrived.”
Kile couldn’t help but notice a look of concern on the Hunter’s face. He was hiding something from her. There was definitely something going on, something she wasn’t supposed to know about.
“Go on, lead the way.” Heaney handed her the lantern.
Kile willingly accepted the light and continued down into the depth of the earth. With the lantern to light her way, she felt a little safer. It chased away the shadow and laid bare the interlocking stone floor. The tunnel, even in its simplicity, was a marvelous architectural feat and must have taken years to build. It descended another sixty or seventy feet before it finally opened into a large chamber. Kile held the lantern up as high as she could, but the light never reached the far wall.
Heaney stepped past her into the room. “This is incredible.”
Incredible wasn’t the word she would have used. She was thinking more along the lines of “familiar.”
“Master Heaney, stop.”
“What is it?” Heaney turned to face her.
Kile held the lantern up as she approached him. The light spread across the floor and finished at the edge of a large pit. Heaney was two steps away from falling in.
“How did ya know?” he asked.
“I’ve been here before.”
“What do ya mean? When have ya been here?”
“A few ages ago,” Kile answered, before cautiously moving past him to stand at the edge of the pit.
She had been in this room before, or at least that’s how it felt. When she touched the mind of the Valgar, this was the place they showed her. The dark room, the writing on the walls and, of course, the pit. She was drawn to that darkness even now. She had to see what was down there, or who was down there.
Kneeling at the edge, she held the lantern over the opening and peered into the darkness, but all she could see was the darkness. There was nothing down there, and she couldn’t even see the bottom. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed. It wasn’t that she wanted to see what she feared, but if she had seen it, it would give credence to her fears.
“Ya all right?” Heaney asked.
Kile moved back from the edge. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
“What did ya mean, ya were here before?”
“It’s nothing.” She shook her head. “A piece of a dream, I guess.”
“If ya know what’s good for ya, I wouldn’t say anything more about it, especially not to Mystic Elmac.”
Kile looked up at the Hunter. “Why? What’s actually going on here?”
“I don’t know, not all of it anyway.”
“W
hat do you know?”
“Look, Kile, whatever ya do—”
The world suddenly lit up as a large ball of light floated into the room and drifted up to the center of the ceiling. It painted all the surfaces with a soft blue glow revealing the full size of the chamber, a perfect circle nearly fifty feet in diameter with the pit in the center. Sixteen ribs ran down from the peak to the floor and all the walls were covered with a series of strange markings, some of which appeared to be pictures.
The Valgar had shown her all of this.
“When we didn’t hear anything from you, we figured you must have reached the bottom,” Elmac said as he entered. The rest of the company was behind him.
“We were about to head back up when we discovered the pit,” Heaney said.
“Interesting,” Elmac remarked, looking over the edge. He dropped a smaller ball of light into the opening and watched as it was swallowed up by the darkness.
“You think this Heart of Nilak might be down there?” Daniel asked.
“That would be my guess,” the mystic answered.
“Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be anyplace else it can be,” Heaney said as he started to walk the perimeter of the room.
“So, that’s it?” Boraro asked. “We go down, we grab it, and we bring it back?”
“Yes, if only it was that easy,” the mystic replied.
Kile moved away from the edge of the pit, leaving it to the others to settle how to recover the artifact. She was more interested in the walls of the chamber, or specifically, the writing on the walls. She couldn’t help but feel she should be able to read it. Each line, each drawing seemed eerily familiar, and yet she knew she had never seen anything like them before. Even when she viewed the room through the mind of the Valgar, she was never able to read the wall, although she somehow knew the writing was there.
“Can you read it?” Daniel asked when he came up behind her.
“No, but I feel like I should be able to.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. You don’t think the Orceen wrote this, do you?”
“I don’t think it matters one way or the other,” Daniel answered. “We’re not here to learn about the temple, just to recover an artifact.”
“But what if it’s instructions or maybe a warning.”
“A warning? A warning about what?”
“About the Heart. Maybe they wrote why it’s here.”
Daniel shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. It’s probably nothing, and even it if is, it’s not like we’ll be able to interpret it before we leave.”
“Yeah, but still…”
“Come on, Ki. Elmac needs us over by the pit.”
She watched him walk away. There was a time Daniel would have been as curious about the writing as she was, if not more so. Where did that Daniel go?
Kile headed over to the pit where the others were now watching her.
“We have a bit of a problem,” Elmac said when she got closer. “Master Creech has informed me there isn’t enough room in the pit for him to perform his air-walking skill.”
“Okay,” Kile said nervously. She didn’t like where this was going.
“We’ve come up with a simple solution, one that requires your assistance.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“It’s simple,” the mystic said with an uneasy grin. “We lower you down into the pit with a rope. You acquire the Heart of Nilak, and we pull you back up. See? Simple.”
“You want to lower me into that pit?” she asked.
“That’s right.”
“You’re mad.”
“We won’t force ya to do it, Kile,” Heaney added. “But ya the smallest and the lightest.”
Kile looked at Daniel who was standing beside Master Boraro. Her friend diverted his eyes. He couldn’t look at her. Something was not right.
“And if I refuse, what then?”
“I suppose one of us will have to go instead,” Heaney said. “I guess Daniel would technically be the next choice.”
“Me?” Daniel squeaked. He looked terrified.
“Ya are lighter than the rest of us,” Heaney said.
“No. Mystic Elmac and I probably weigh about the same.”
“That might be true, but Elmac is not a Hunter—you are.”
“Yeah, but…”
“I’ll go,” Kile said in defeat. “There’s no need to threaten me with sending Daniel. You know he’s not a field Hunter.”
“I’m sorry, Ki,” Heaney said. “That’s the way it’s gotta be.”
~~~***~~~
With a rope tied around her waist and her feet dangling over the edge of the pit, Kile was beginning to have second thoughts. Would they really send Daniel if she refused to go? Daniel wasn’t much lighter than any of the others. Creech was only slightly heavier, and why did it matter? With Boraro and Heaney on the other end of the rope, any member of the company could have gone.
It was her paranoia, she kept telling herself. She was overthinking again. Ever since Sir Oblum had told her about the Sons of Terrabin, she was seeing them in every shadow, or at least every shadow that wasn’t infested by the Maligar.
“You ready?” Heaney asked.
“No, but does it matter?” she said.
“You’ll be all right,” he kept telling her. The first time was when they tested the rope, next when they tied it around her waist, and at last, when she approached the edge of the pit. The problem was, each time he said it, it sounded less sincere.
“When you have the Heart of Nilak, tug three times on the rope and we’ll pull you up,” Elmac instructed.
Daniel stood across the pit from her, Vesper cradled in his hands. “Be careful,” he said as if she needed to be told.
“I’m ready,” she said, more to convince herself than anyone else.
She took a deep breath and held it, before turning around and carefully lowering herself over the edge. Boraro and Heaney kept the rope taut while she made her way down into the pit. It was a slow descent. There were few handholds in the walls, and she was reluctant to rely too heavily on the rope. She knew Heaney would keep a tight grip, but she wasn’t too sure about Master Boraro. With the history they shared, he might accidentally let go of the rope at the most inopportune time.
She was about thirty feet down when she reached the bottom. The ground looked solid enough until she stepped on it. It wasn’t that it couldn’t support her, it simply wasn’t there. With nothing under her feet, she lost her grip on the wall and fell into the darkness. Her rapid descent stopped when the line went taut.
Kile hung in midair, spinning on the end of the rope. Wherever she looked, she saw nothing. There was nothing around her. No walls, no floor, even the rope, which held her, ended five feet above her.
“Are ya all right?” somebody called out to her. It sounded like Heaney, but it was so far away and slightly distorted, it was difficult to tell.
“I’m okay,” she called back, although she felt like a worm on the end of a fishing line.
“We’re going to pull ya up, hang on.”
“No, lower me down.”
It only made sense. She’d come this far, and it seemed pointless to go back now. This was still their best chance of recovering the Heart.
As they lowered her deeper into the pit, the darkness closed in on her. Wherever she looked, she saw nothing. If it wasn’t for the uncomfortable jerking of the rope, she wouldn’t have known she was moving. There was nothing around her to gauge motion. She could just as well be going up as going down.
Suddenly, Kile’s feet touched something solid. She tried not to put her weight on it, for fear of falling again, but it wasn’t like she had much choice. The rope started to slacken behind her. She was standing on something, but she couldn’t see it. The darkness was complete. It surrounded her. The only thing she could see were Elmac’s three glowing orbs—the ones he’d tossed down before she entered the pit, but their light was too d
im to be of any use.
Closing her eyes and falling into her Edge, Kile let her feral side take over. She hoped her heightened senses would aid her in the darkness, but when she opened her eyes, she didn’t expect to see what she saw. Where once there was nothing, now stood a forest. She was surrounded by trees. Tall green trees with a leafy canopy high above her head and a thick lush carpet of grass beneath her feet. The air had the sweet smell of summer and was filled with the songs of birds.
“This is not real,” she told herself, but it felt real.
With every step she took she could feel the living forest around her. It was old and it was powerful and it was calling to her. She could sense the presence of animals, a family of deer in the field, a groundhog in a hole, even a few squirrels in the trees. She reached out to them, but they couldn’t hear her, or they weren’t listening. Untying the rope from around her waist, she headed into the heart of the forest. She didn’t know which way to go, but one way seemed as good as another.
Time had no meaning here, but neither did reality. The sun was shining above her, set within a blue sky as fluffy little white clouds floated by. None of it could be real. She was underground, she kept telling herself. She was down a dark well, in a subterranean temple on a dead island. Had she fallen? Did she hit her head? Was she lying unconscious at the bottom of the pit? Did she finally join the rest of the Orceen and go completely mad?
-This way.-
Kile turned to see a black wolf watching her from between the trees.
“Who are you?” she asked him.
-This way,- he said before disappearing.
She ran to the place where he stood, but there was no sign of him.
“Okay, this is getting a little weird.”
-This way.-
Turning, she saw the wolf again, still watching her from a safe distance. She moved toward him, but when she got closer, he disappeared. He simply turned to smoke and floated away on the breeze.
“Where to now?” she asked no one in particular.
-This way.-
The black wolf reappeared a few yards away and waited for her to approach. When she did, he floated away again.
-This way.-
