Water Keep

by J. Scott Savage

  Again, nothing happened.

  Marcus put up his hand in a what-did-I-tell-you gesture. “Better luck next time,” he said, beginning to slide across the cold stone floor into his cell.

  “Get back here,” Screech said. He grabbed Marcus by the shoulder and pulled him out of his cell. “I can do it. I have stronger spells. Much stronger. Spells you can’t even imagine.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marcus said. “But we could be here all night trying new spells. It’s clear my magic is stronger than yours. Besides, I’m really hungry for some of that gray, library-paste stuff. So if you’ll just let me get back to my cell, I’ll—”

  “No,” Screech howled. He brought his wand down from above his head in a great, slashing stroke. “Srisket tromkin hasbrat kinstak!”

  Marcus rolled to the side as a huge ball of fire burst from the tip of Screech’s wand. It flew straight toward Kyja. But her immunity to magic reflected the spell. It hit the block of ice, shattered it into a million tiny pieces and bounced straight back at Screech. Before he could utter a word, the fireball knocked him off his feet, threw him across the corridor, and slammed him against the bars of the far cell, where he slid, unconscious, to the floor.

  Chapter 47

  Rhaidnan’s Hope

  You have to wake up.” Marcus rubbed Kyja’s pale face. Her cheeks felt ice-cold, but at least she was breathing. Still, it had been almost ten minutes since Screech’s spell had shattered her frozen prison, and Marcus had no idea how long the creature would stay unconscious or when the unmakers might discover what had happened. He’d tried to drag Screech into one of the cells, but the body was too heavy for him to move so he just took his keys.

  “You’re going to be in big trouble when he comes to,” the man in the other cell said in the same tone of voice he might have commented on the temperature.

  “I’m not going to be here when he comes to,” Marcus said, turning back to Kyja.

  “You’ll never escape.”

  Marcus ignored him. “Come on, Kyja. You have to wake up.” He shook her shoulders, worried by the way her head wobbled loosely back and forth. But at last she gave a tiny moan, and her eyelids fluttered ever so slightly.

  “There are miles of caverns, and the unmakers are everywhere,” the man said, resting casually back on his elbows.

  Marcus shot an exasperated look over his shoulder. “If you’re so worried about it, why don’t you help me?”

  “I’m not worried,” the man said. “And I told you before—I don’t want to escape. I don’t want anything.”

  Marcus returned his attention to Kyja. The man was obviously beyond help. But even if what he said was true, Marcus wouldn’t go down without a fight—and he wouldn’t go anywhere without Kyja. “Can you hear me?” he said, leaning close to her face and rubbing his fingers over her cold hands.

  “Unh,” she groaned. Her eyes blinked, and Marcus thought he saw a spark of recognition.

  “Kyja,” he said, taking her face in his fingers. “It’s Marcus. You have to wake up. We have to get out of here.”

  “Marcus?” she said thickly.

  He tried to pull her up to a sitting position, but she flopped limply forward, banging her forehead against his.

  “Ow,” she said, rubbing her head. But the pain seemed to awaken her. She looked groggily around. “Where are we?”

  Marcus sighed with relief as Kyja sat up. “I don’t have time to tell you everything right now. But we’re in danger, and if we don’t get out of here soon, that thing over there is going to wake up, and we’ll never escape.”

  Kyja looked where Marcus pointed, and her eyes widened. “A cave trulloch.”

  “Is that what it’s called?” Marcus said. “Well, whatever it is, it’s nothing compared to the unmakers it serves.”

  “Unmakers?” Kyja got wobbly to her feet, gripping the bars of her cell for support. “Those aren’t real. They’re just make-believe creatures from scary stories people tell to frighten little children.”

  “Believe me,” Marcus said, “they’re real.”

  “Where’s Riph Raph?” Kyja asked.

  Marcus shrugged, afraid of what Screech might have done with the skyte. “I don’t know. But we have to get out of here.”

  Picking up his staff, he limped from Kyja’s cell, and after a moment, she followed him. “Who’s that man?” she said, peering into the cell across the corridor.

  “He’s a prisoner, too,” Marcus said. “But he’s too far gone to come with us.” He glanced anxiously at the trulloch, who was beginning to make small, jerking motions.

  “We can’t just leave him here,” she said, sounding completely awake for the first time.

  “I offered to set him free,” Marcus said. He showed her the key ring he’d taken. “But he won’t leave.”

  Screech moaned, and Marcus jumped. “Come on. We have to go.”

  Kyja took the keys from Marcus and unlocked the man’s cell door. He watched without much interest as she knelt before him. “Don’t you want to escape with us?” she asked, looking over his disgusting quarters. “You can’t want to stay here.”

  “Don’t care either way,” the man replied. He picked at his teeth with his fingernail.

  “The unmakers have sucked all the emotions out of him,” Marcus said, keeping an eye on the trulloch. “We have to leave him before it’s too late.”

  While Kyja brushed the filthy hair from the man’s eyes and gazed into his face, Marcus looked anxiously down the corridor. Who knew how close the unmakers might be?

  “Don’t I know you?” Kyja suddenly asked.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care,” the man sighed.

  “Ky-ja,” Marcus pleaded.

  “I do know you,” Kyja said. “You’re Rhaidnan Everwood. You disappeared months ago on a hunting trip.”

  The man blinked, but still showed no sign of moving. “If you say so.”

  Screech flopped an arm heavily against the stone floor. He could wake up at any minute.

  “He’s not going to come,” Marcus said. “We have to leave, Kyja, or we’ll end up just like him.”

  Kyja took the man’s face in her hands and forced him to look into her eyes. “Your wife is Char. I tended your son and daughter, Rhaidnan Jr. and Paloi, while your wife looked for work.”

  All at once a spark of interest seemed to flicker in the man’s eyes, and he sat up. “Char?”

  “She was crushed when you didn’t return,” Kyja said, taking his hand. “You can’t tell me you don’t care about your own wife and children.”

  As if waking from a dream, Rhaidnan got slowly to his feet. “I . . . I do care about them,” he said—seemingly amazed at the discovery. “I do.”

  Rhaidnan blinked, rubbing his eyes and looking around uncertainly, as though trying to remember where he was.

  Screech babbled incoherently, and his eyes blinked.

  “Quickly,” Rhaidnan said, grabbing the cave trulloch’s arms. “Help me get him into the cell.”

  Kyja and Rhaidnan took Screech by the arms, with Marcus helping out the best he could. Together the three of them strained to drag the trulloch into Rhaidnan’s cell.

  “Wh-wh-” Screech muttered as Rhaidnan dropped him on the hard, stone floor.

  Marcus swung the door closed and turned the key in the lock.

  “See how you like it in there,” Rhaidnan said. “And I don’t think you’ll be needing this anymore.” He snapped the black stick he’d taken from Screech over his knee.

  “Can he still cast magic without his wand?” Kyja asked.

  “I’d rather not find out,” Rhaidnan said.

  “We need to go now,” Marcus said. How long would it take before the unmakers realized something was wrong?

  Rhaidnan flung the broken pieces of the wand into Marcus’s old cell, and he and Kyja jogged down the corridor with Marcus hurrying to keep up.

  They had just reached the first side passage when they heard the rattling of bars behind them, and an in
human scream echoing through the cavern. Marcus glanced up at Kyja and Rhaidnan. “I think Screech just woke up.”

  Chapter 48

  The Cave Maze

  Which way?” Kyja asked, checking left and right. Both of the damp tunnels looked equally forbidding.

  “We went that way when Screech took me to the unmakers,” Marcus said looking to the left. “Let’s go right.”

  “What do the unmakers look like?” Kyja asked as they hurried along the uneven stone floor.

  “They’re sort of invisible,” Marcus said, without stopping.

  “Invisible?” Kyja paused as they reached another intersecting passage. “How can we avoid something we can’t see?”

  “We’ll have to deal with that when we come to it,” Marcus said. He checked the side corridors before finally pointing straight ahead. “Keep going.”

  But only a few seconds later, Rhaidnan skidded to a halt, gripping Marcus and Kyja by the shoulders. “We need to turn back,” he said, raising his nose to the air. “Do you smell that?”

  Kyja sniffed. “Spoiled fruit.”

  “I remember it,” Marcus said. “From the big chamber.”

  Rhaidnan nodded. “It’s the unmakers. The caverns all smell that way, but it gets stronger the closer they are.”

  They returned to the previous intersection. Rhaidnan shook his head. “I’ve never been this way.”

  In the distance they heard another howl echo through the cavern—this one closer. “Sounds like Screech got loose,” Marcus said.

  Making the decision for them, Kyja turned right. They hurried down a sloping passage. Marcus was breathing hard, his staff slipping on the wet floor as he tried to keep up. Kyja still felt dizzy and a little sick to her stomach from being trapped between worlds, but Rhaidnan finally looked alive.

  At the next intersection, Rhaidnan sniffed the air in both directions. “Left,” he said at once.

  “Wait,” Marcus called as they rounded a rock outcropping.

  “What is it?” Kyja peered up and down the corridor, not knowing what to look for, but afraid of seeing it anyway.

  “Why don’t we just go back to Earth? I’m sure the Dark Circle has moved on by now.”

  “And leave Rhaidnan here alone?”

  “No.” Marcus slapped the stone wall in excitement. “We can take him with us.”

  “Earth?” Rhaidnan asked, clearly confused by their conversation.

  Kyja considered Marcus’s plan. It made sense. The unmakers could discover them any minute. And even if they managed to escape the unmakers’ lair, they’d be stuck back on the side of the mountain.

  But something about it didn’t feel right.

  “I . . .” She rubbed her temples, trying to clear her mind. “I don’t think we can.”

  “Can what?”

  Kyja shook her head. “I don’t think we can take him to Ert with us. I know we took Riph Raph, but this feels different, somehow. It’s like Riph Raph is a part of us and Rhaidnan’s . . . not. If we jump, I think he’ll be left behind.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re taking about,” Rhaidnan said. The emaciated hunter rubbed his bony hand across the chest of his tattered shirt. “But if you two have some sort of magic that will let you escape this forsaken place, don’t stop on my account. I’m probably going to die here anyway, but at least I’ll die a free man because of you two. Don’t worry about me. Just go.”

  Kyja and Marcus looked at each other.

  “No,” they said together.

  “We’re not going to leave you,” Kyja said.

  “We’ll find a way to get us all out of this,” Marcus added, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

  All at once, the air filled with the smell of rotten fruit, accompanied by a wet, slithering sound, and Screech’s voice sounded behind them. “This way!”

  “Run,” Marcus said, and the three of them hurried down to where the tunnel split into a fork. The sound of Screech’s pounding feet was getting closer behind them, accompanied by the ominous squelching of one or more unmakers.

  “Are you all right?” Kyja shouted, glancing back at Marcus, who was beginning to fall behind.

  He nodded without stopping and gasped, “Keep going.”

  Rhaidnan pointed to a trail of brackish, black fluid on the floor to the right. “This way,” he said, going to the left.

  For the next few minutes, they followed Rhaidnan—taking rights and lefts almost at random until none of them had any idea where they were. The sound of Screech and the unmakers continued to draw ever closer, and Marcus was lagging behind. Seeing the way Marcus’s arms and legs were trembling, Kyja wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to keep going.

  “Left,” Rhaidnan said as they reached a three-way intersection. Kyja began to follow the hunter up a particularly steep passage before looking back and realizing Marcus wasn’t coming. He was leaning against the wall at the bottom of the hill, gasping for breath.

  “Keep . . . going,” he wheezed when Kyja went back for him. Screech’s howling echoed off the cavern walls, making it impossible to tell just how close he was, but the sound was deafening.

  “No.” Kyja leaned down and drew his arm around her shoulder, trying to help him up the hill.

  “I can’t do it!” he cried as they both nearly fell over. “I’m . . . too . . . weak. Go on, before they . . . catch . . . both . . . of us.”

  “Not without you,” Kyja said, trying to ignore the wet snuffling sound of the unmakers. She strained against Marcus’s weight, and without any warning, he was lifted from her grasp.

  It was Rhaidnan. He had returned to take Marcus from the other side. Between him and Kyja, they drag-walked Marcus up the passage. Rounding the corner at the top, all three of them gasped.

  It was a dead end. The passage stopped cold in a wall of collapsed rocks and debris.

  “Back!” Rhaidnan shouted. He led them down the passage to the intersection.

  “They’re too close,” Marcus said. “Leave me.” Screech sounded like he was right on top of them.

  Rhaidnan sniffed the air. He glanced left and right. “Their smell is every—” His words were cut off by a wavering of air to their left.

  “Don’t look!” Marcus shouted. But it was too late.

  Kyja turned, and the world she knew collapsed before her like a house of cards crashing to the ground. Where once there had been a long, dank tunnel and the sound of voices around her, now there was nothing but blackness with a swirl of colors spinning into the middle of it.

  Kyja’s mouth dropped open in rapt wonder. Nothing was real. Everything up until this instant—Master Therapass, the Goodnuffs, Riph Raph, Marcus—had all been a dream. The only thing that mattered was darkness, because in the end, everything turned to darkness. Everything was unmade.

  What she thought of as her life was all an illusion. No matter how much you fought against it, this was all you had to look forward to in the end. There was no point in even trying to struggle. Why not give in to it?

  “Yes,” she said, nodding her head. “I understand now. All a dream.” The darkness gave a slow-beating thrum that seemed to match the beating of her heart. In the distance, she heard faint sounds. But they were far away and unimportant. All of her worries, all of her cares, slipped from her as she began to walk toward the swirling colors.

  * * *

  For Marcus, everything seemed to happen at once. Rhaidnan was sniffing the air, looking uncertainly in all directions. The smell of rotten fruit was everywhere, and the strange configuration of the cavern walls made it impossible to know where the wet snuffling sounds were coming from.

  Marcus heard Kyja suck in her breath, and he followed her gaze down the left passageway.

  “Don’t look!” he shouted, averting his eyes. But it was too late. Kyja stared dumbly down the tunnel toward the unmaker. Her mouth moved silently as if she were speaking to the repugnant creature, and her feet began to move toward it. Marcus grabbed onto her arm, but she dragged
herself forward with a strength he’d never imagined she had.

  At that moment, Screech rounded the corner, his eyes bright with fury. Behind him, the air thickened and swirled.

  “Got you!” Screech howled. He stretched his black-clawed fingers toward Marcus, but before he could touch him, something blurred through the air and bounced off the trulloch’s ridged forehead.

  “Urrgh,” Screech cried, stumbling backward. Rhaidnan reached to the ground, picked up a second rock, and hurled it. This one caught Screech directly in the front of his throat, and he fell to his knees. Instantly, Rhaidnan darted forward, clasped his fingers together and brought his fists down on the trulloch’s head. Screech crumpled to the ground.

  But right behind him were a swarm of unmakers. The air was heavy with their foul stench, and the sound of their wet movement filled the passage.

  Keeping his gaze low, Marcus turned to the left where Kyja was almost halfway to the unmaker, and to the right which was the only option left to them.

  “Take Kyja,” he said to Rhaidnan.

  The hunter motioned toward her. “It’s too late.”

  “No!” Marcus screamed. Kyja had nearly reached the unmakers. He had to stop her. It was all his fault. If it weren’t for his stupid, crippled body, Kyja and Rhaidnan would have escaped. He needed to divert the unmakers’ attention if Rhaidnan and Kyja were to have any chance. And he knew only one way to do that.

  Understanding the consequences all too well, he stretched back his head, clenched his fist, and let raw magic flow from him. Immediately, he felt the terrible ripping sensation he’d experienced in the chamber. A cold, wet hand seemed to ram itself down his throat, grabbing at his insides and ripping them out.

  “Aaargh!” he screamed. The pain was unbearable. Maybe it was because there were more of them feeding, or maybe it was that he hadn’t opened himself up this way last time, but his entire body lifted off the floor and slammed back down again and again. At least the unmakers had stopped coming toward Rhaidnan and Kyja.

  He managed to turn his head to see Rhaidnan holding Kyja. She was struggling, but Rhaidnan held her tightly, the muscles on his thin arms straining.