by Ben Wolf
It reared its head back and roared as it clutched its eye with its enormous hands, but that just opened it up to more attacks on its tongue and gums from Condor and Falcroné.
Even amid the mayhem, Lilly had to snicker. For as much as they despised each other, Condor and Falcroné made the perfect fighting duo. They anticipated each other’s actions and synchronized their attacks to inflict maximum damage on the Jyrak without endangering themselves.
Enough watching. Lilly propelled herself down toward the Jyrak, ready to fling herself into the fray once again.
For all his concern for Lilly, Calum had to admit she and the two Wisps were handling themselves just fine. The longer he watched, the more at ease he began to feel.
“We’re clear of the Jyrak’s tail!” Jake shouted. He cranked the wheel hard to his left. “Gimme five minutes, and I’ll have you right at the bend.”
Axel and Kanton came up behind Calum, Magnus, and Riley, and Calum glanced back at them. “Everything set? Did you find something we can use to help us sink?”
Axel nodded. “We’ll use the ship’s anchors. They’re the obvious choice.”
“Are they on this side of the ship?” Calum asked.
Axel’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, why?”
“We need them on the opposite side. When Jake turns the ship, the side opposite of the Jyrak is the one we’re jumping off.” Calum scanned the deck. “Where are they?”
“I’ll show you.” Kanton darted toward the ship’s stern and pointed to a pair of gigantic black anchors with ropes fastened to their ends, and Calum and the others followed.
“Cut them loose, and then we gotta carry them across the ship.” Calum glanced over his shoulder at the Jyrak, which had just begun to turn toward them. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
Despite their combined efforts, Lilly, Condor, and Falcroné hadn’t managed to keep the Jyrak from noticing Jake’s ship sneaking around behind it. When it began to turn toward the ship, Lilly knew she had to do something.
She knifed under the Jyrak’s chin, looped up to its open mouth, then jammed her sword into its gums right between its two center teeth. Orange goo spurted onto the front of her armor and on her face.
The droning roar that erupted from the Jyrak’s throat deafened her until she clamped her hands over her ears. She didn’t see its tongue lash out of its mouth until it was too late.
The Jyrak’s tongue plowed into her with the full force of a charging Sobek and sent her spinning through the air. Her senses dulled, and she tried to right herself, but she couldn’t find her bearings.
Her body smacked against something solid and her momentum stopped. She rolled over and her fingers brushed against the smooth stones paving the surface below her.
Paved? How could she have landed on a street?
When her vision regained some focus, she saw three tall thick forms rising toward her, and she gasped at her realization.
The stones paving the street weren’t stones at all.
They were scales.
Lilly had landed in the center of the Jyrak’s open hand.
Condor saw the Jyrak’s tongue ram into Lilly, and in the worst example of bad luck he’d ever encountered, she careened straight into its waiting hand.
He immediately hurtled down toward her. He had to save her, and he would.
Condor swooped at her as the Jyrak’s fingers closed and extended—
A heavy blow knocked him off course, and he missed the Jyrak’s hand entirely. His sword slipped from his grasp and fell toward the churning waters below. Condor realized he would never get it back in time as he realized what had happened.
The Jyrak’s other hand had swept in from the side and batted him away in the second worst manifestation of bad luck he’d ever encountered.
Now too far away, he righted himself and watched, helpless, as the Jyrak’s fingers closed on Lilly.
A blur of blond hair and charcoal armor zoomed in, jammed a sword into the underside of the Jyrak’s middle finger, and braced himself against its palm.
Falcroné.
Condor zipped toward them again.
Still dazed, Lilly couldn’t believe her eyes.
Somehow, Falcroné had wedged himself between her and the Jyrak’s middle finger with his sword, and he’d kept it from crushing her. Then Condor appeared next to Falcroné and also pushed against the Jyrak’s finger with his hands.
Though both Wisps strained against the monster’s might, the finger continued to lower, threatening to crush them all. Lilly tried to move, tried to fly away, but she couldn’t.
“Get her out of here!” Falcroné yelled at him.
“Not without you!” Condor shouted back.
“Do it, Condor,” Falcroné almost pleaded. “Take care of her.”
Condor’s mouth opened slightly. His eyes fixed on Falcroné’s wobbling legs for an instant, then he scooped Lilly into his arms and sprang away from the Jyrak’s hand while Falcroné bellowed a war cry that Lilly would never forget. She reached back for him, helpless to do anything else.
The Jyrak’s middle finger slammed down on Falcroné, and his sword plunged into the churning waters below.
Chapter Forty-Two
Lilly tried to scream, but nothing came out. When it finally did, it sounded distant, faint. She inhaled a sharp breath and screamed again, and this time her lungs delivered their full payload.
She begged Condor to take her back, to help Falcroné—anything, but he just kept repeating, “It’s over. He’s gone.”
The Jyrak raised its hand and thrust Falcroné’s rag-doll form into its gaping mouth, and Lilly’s heart shattered.
Calum and the others had just managed to get the second anchor across the deck when Jake crowed from the captain’s wheel.
“We’re there!” He stomped on the deck three times, and the men who rowed from their spots on the inside of the ship’s hull raised their oars.
His ship had lined up with a large gray rock formation that jutted about a hundred feet above the surface of the lake and formed part of its perimeter for about a half-mile. Because of the way the surf thrashed and the proximity of the rocks, Jake couldn’t have docked the ship even if he’d wanted to.
“Without anchors, I can’t keep us steady for long. Go, now!”
Magnus leaped off the side of the ship nearest to the bend and dove into the water while Calum watched. If he didn’t survive, if something happened to him down there, they were all as good as dead.
The double-thump of a Windgale landing sounded behind him, and he turned around. Condor stood there with Lilly in his arms, both of them coated in glowing orange blood. Lilly clung to Condor’s neck, her body heaving with sobs.
Calum’s mouth hung open. He searched the skies and looked up at the Jyrak, but he saw no one else. There were only two of them.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and managed to choke out one word. “Falcroné?”
Condor stared at him with the same stoic look in his blue eyes as the day the Premier had banished him to the Blood Chasm, and he shook his head.
Sickness twisted Calum’s gut. So many had died for this cause already, and danger still loomed above them and swirled all around them. Would freeing Lumen be worth it all?
“Uh, Calum?” Jake motioned toward the Jyrak. “Your friend had better hurry. We’re in trouble.”
The Jyrak had turned toward them again. One step and it would come within reach of the ship.
“Get the anchors as close to the edge as you can. We need to be ready to go the moment Magnus resurfaces.” Calum turned his attention back to the waters below, and muttered, “Come on, Magnus. Come on.”
“Lilly, it’s over. We still need you here.”
Condor’s velvet voice coaxed her to open her eyes, but when she saw his face, all she could think of was Falcroné’s horrible death, and she burst into tears again.
“Shhh, it’s alright,” he crooned.
It wouldn’t be alright. She had lo
ved Falcroné, even if her emotions had been mixed. He was her oldest and closest friend, and now he was gone. Dead. Killed by that abomination.
“Put me down,” she whispered. “Please.”
Condor complied, but he gripped her shoulders in his hands. “He loved you, Lilly. That’s why he did what he did.”
She nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. It came as little consolation now that he was gone. “I know.”
“We’re not done yet. We have to go find Lumen now.”
Lilly stared at him. Ever since he’d joined their group, she had barely heard so much as a peep from him about Lumen’s existence aside from sharing the location of the Arcanum.
Behind Condor, the Jyrak stepped closer to the ship.
“I’ll protect you, Lilly. I promise I will.” Condor gave her a faint smile. “Even if it means doing for you what Fal did.”
“He did it for you, too, you know,” Lilly said.
Was she trying to console him from her own hurt?
No. Her words were truth—truth that needed to be spoken.
“He always admired you. Always respected you. Even after—”
“I know, Lilly.” Condor closed his eyes and gave a sullen nod. “I know.”
“I don’t need anyone else dying for me, so you stay alive. Crystal?”
He raised his head and met her eyes. “Clear.”
Something about the way he said it chilled her from the inside out. She didn’t have time to investigate the sensation before Calum’s voice snatched her back into the real world.
“Over here!” Calum yelled. “Magnus is back up!”
Lilly and Condor zipped over to the edge of the ship. Sure enough, Magnus’s dark-green head bobbed at the water’s surface.
“I found it. It is quite far down, but I think we can—”
“Look out!” Jake’s voice split the air.
Lilly turned around in time to see the Jyrak’s hand descending toward the ship.
The Jyrak’s hand hit so hard and so fast that Calum didn’t even have time to jump off the ship. When he finally resurfaced, he realized that the Jyrak’s blow had flung him and everyone else aboard the ship into the water, along with the anchors.
The anchors. Their only way of getting down.
If they were both lost—
“Calum!”
He turned his head in time to see Magnus’s head disappear under the water along with the end of something black and curved.
One of the anchors.
“Quickly, over here!” Calum yelled.
Riley, Axel, Condor, and Lilly joined him while Kanton, the surviving Wolves, Jake, and what remained of his crew clung to shards of the ship’s wood.
“Down, now!”
Calum sucked the deepest breath he’d ever taken into his lungs and let his armor weight pull him under.
Below him, Magnus was still in view, struggling to slow the anchor’s descent, but Calum could see he wouldn’t last much longer. If they didn’t get ahold of that anchor in time, they would drown before they ever reached the cavern that led to the Hidden Abyss.
Calum kicked and clawed at the water with all his might. He had almost reached Magnus’s outstretched arm when a current pushed him away. Magnus reacted and lashed his tail through the water at Calum, who grabbed ahold of it. As his descent accelerated, something clamped onto his ankle.
It was Riley. In turn, Axel held onto him, Condor held Axel, and Lilly held Condor. They descended to the lake’s depths as a unit, together.
The air in Calum’s lungs had already begun to stale, but the anchor sank them deeper and deeper into the lake.
He stole a glance up at the surface. They’d descended far enough now that there was no hope of turning back. Calum would either find the Hidden Abyss and free Lumen, or he would die in these waters. He hoped he hadn’t been imagining everything Lumen had told him up until this point.
All at once, Magnus released his grip on the anchor and it dropped into the darker waters below. He motioned toward the wall then swam toward a large, black opening. Calum released his tail and followed him into the hole, and the rest of the group followed him as well.
With each stroke of his arms and legs, Calum exhaled more air until he had no more breath in his lungs to expel. His chest burned from deprivation, but he swam forward through the darkness nonetheless, flailing, kicking, scraping his way through the murky water without knowing where he was going.
No air. No salvation. No Lumen.
He realized he was going to die in that underwater tunnel. He’d die with his friends. With Magnus, with Axel, Riley, Condor—if he could consider Condor a friend, anyway—and with Lilly.
Lilly, with whom he’d shared so much, but not even half as much as he would’ve liked.
Calum’s vision darkened. His mouth opened and water cascaded into his lungs, and everything went black.
The next thing he knew, Calum lay on his side, coughing that very same water onto an uneven stone floor. He sucked in a deep breath of musty air. Ancient air.
He was alive.
And they had made it.
“Are you alright, Calum?” Magnus’s deep voice reverberated off the jagged walls inside the small cavern.
Calum rolled onto his back and looked up. Instead of total darkness, a faint white light from somewhere illuminated Magnus’s green face. Calum coughed again and nodded. “Yeah. I’m alright.”
Two sets of hands pulled him to his feet—Condor and Riley. Lilly and Axel stood on either side of Magnus wearing relieved expressions.
Calum was just as glad to see them, but he didn’t dare tarry any longer. He took a few tentative steps forward and surveyed the cavern.
The space didn’t compare to that of the Arcanum by any measure. The ceiling hung no more than twenty feet above their heads at its highest point, and stalactites jutted down at random. Overall, the entire cavern couldn’t have been larger than a forty-by-sixty-foot area, and a solid ten-by-ten pillar of solid rock occupied the middle of the cavern.
Yet it was that ten-by-ten section that gave off the faint light.
Upon closer inspection, Calum realized the pillar amounted to little more than several large stalactites that had stretched so low that they eventually melded with the cavern floor. Over time, the mineral deposits had spread and widened the stalactites into one massive pillar that looked as if it supported the entire cavern’s ceiling.
But Calum realized exactly what it was.
Faint light glimmered through dozens of tiny crystals embedded within the stone, no doubt refracted from the prisoner trapped inside. A round platform made of four sections of white marble encircled the pillar, identical except for the worn carvings in the center of each one: a Wolf, a Saurian, a Windgale, and a human.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Axel asked.
Calum eyed him. “So do you believe me yet?”
“Don’t get smart.” He glowered at Calum. “I almost died like a hundred times today.”
“Some of us did die.” Lilly’s voice barely registered above a whisper, but the cavern amplified her words.
Axel’s jaw tensed, and he didn’t say anything else.
“At this point, there’s only one thing to do.” Calum motioned toward the marble platform. “Magnus, take your place.”
Magnus nodded, then he stepped onto the section of marble designated for a Saurian.
“Riley, you next.” After Riley complied, Calum looked at Condor and Lilly. “Which of you wants to do it?”
“I will.” This time Lilly’s voice rang clear. She looked up at Condor, who stood by her. “As long as you don’t mind.”
Condor grinned. “Not in the least. Fal would have wanted it this way.”
Lilly showed him a shallow smile and took her place on the platform.
Calum turned and faced Axel. He motioned toward the platform. “Go ahead.”
“What?” Axel’s mouth hung open. “You’re joking, right?”
�
�No.” Calum shook his head. “I want you to be the one who sets Lumen free.”
“Not a chance. I’m still not convinced this’ll even work.” Axel folded his arms and winked at Calum. “Besides, this moment, if it ends up being real, is for you. I can’t take it from you.”
Calum smiled at him. Axel had proven more of a burden than Calum had ever imagined when they first left his farm, but even so, Calum never would’ve made it this far without him. His first friend. His best friend.
“Go on, already.” Axel nodded toward the pillar. “It’s too cold in here for us to keep standing around like a bunch of idiots.”
Calum chuckled, and he started toward the platform. He stopped just in front of it, exhaled a long breath, and placed his right foot on the marble, then his left.
The instant his left foot touched the platform, it lowered into the rock by three inches. Unsure what to do, Calum backed off, as did Lilly, Riley, and Magnus.
The platform sections jerked toward the pillar one at a time and slammed into it, sending long fissures up its sides. Rocks and dust trickled from the fissures as the last platform struck the pillar, and then all fell silent.
The faint light from within the pillar intensified and pierced through the fissures into the cavern. Each fissure branched into a hundred smaller cracks that spread around the pillar until the stone began to crumble away altogether, leaving only blinding white light in its place.
Light. So pure that it penetrated Calum to his very soul.
He tried to shield his eyes with his hands, but it burned through him.
Now, at long last, his friends knew what he’d experienced in his dreams, and he was finally experiencing it in real life. It saturated him with sheer joy, and he wanted to whoop and shout in delight.
An ethereal voice groaned in the ancient air around them, and the light faded enough that Calum could look upon Kanarah’s savior with his real eyes for the first time. He stepped free of his prison and his presence filled the entire cavern with radiance.
