by E A Bagby
My nerves screamed from terror, but I wanted to appear brave. Cleo certainly wanted me to be, and bravery would be needed to get us home. I tried to match the casual attitudes of Cleo and Meritus. “It’ll be windy, and you may need help. It’s named the Wind Cave, after all.” I intended to be glib to show confidence, but my voice shook, and the humor fell flat.
But Cleo appreciated the gesture. “Thank you, Giels,” she said and smiled.
I faked an assured smile back and walked the inclined floor much less elegantly than Erikal.
Erikal, Cleo, and Meritus discussed a strategy for testing the controls. Erikal opened the door, and he and I jumped down several feet to the walking surface. The vehicle wobbled and scraped against something on the opposite side.
The air blew in a gentle, continuous flow; fast enough to exert a chill on my face and hands, but much weaker than I had expected. I braced my arms across my chest for warmth.
Erikal squatted and knocked his fist on the floor. “Metal,” he said, “very thick metal, of some kind, I think. An alloy, maybe?” He remained level-headed enough to question the makeup of the world around us.
It impressed me. Invisible beings, spirits, souls, and even deities floating about or beyond the door intruded my mind. I felt like a ramble-rodent caught in a trap, waiting, eyes wide with fear, for the arrival of the hungry trapper.
Looking around, I found nothing familiar, nothing of detail to focus on, except the door. My head spun from the cave’s size and unnatural simplicity. To stave off my disorientation, I focused on the door’s outline and its ominous subtlety. Had we been meant to discover it, or had it wished to remain hidden?
“Come on, Giels.” Erikal jerked his head to signal me to follow him around the Silver Dare.
Our friends watched us through the forward windows. I caught Cleo’s eye. She smiled, in the way girls do sometimes to show compassion in a difficult situation. It made me think I needed to appear braver.
A few feet of walking surface, not visible from inside, lay between the vehicle’s hull and the precipice. On that narrow surface, we carefully moved to the wing assembly.
The outermost facets, which hung ten feet over the edge, appeared horribly bent—worse than they looked from inside. Their connecting joints and motors hung loose.
“Those are useless now,” Erikal said as he smacked the wing’s primary connecting strut. He waved to Meritus, who, in turn, said something to Cleo. The two adjacent, less-damaged facets moved. Meritus and Erikal continued to communicate with gestures as though they had a secret language.
Cleo worked at the controls, but the vehicle did not lift.
Erikal pointed at the wing plate above me. “Watch those.” I shrugged, not understanding what he needed. “Watch the motors and cam alignments,” he said, and walked around to the other side.
The wing-plates moved. They appeared functional, except for the twisted ones at the end.
“The bent cam is not moving its facet,” I shouted, hoping I made sense. I guessed at which part was the cam. In my anxiety, I’d answered without considering whether my guess endangered us further. Realizing this, I grew angry with myself, but I did not admit my mistake.
Erikal shouted a few more commands to Meritus and Cleo. I braced myself for when the vehicle would rotate away from me and onto its skis. The individual blades moved dramatically, but the vehicle remained stationary.
Will we leave? I shook from nerves. I turned homeward, towards the impossible distance of the cave’s vanishing point, and imagined walking.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Erikal said from immediately behind me. I jolted, nearly losing my footing over the precipice before he grabbed my arm.
“Lock the cam.” He reached over my shoulder and pushed something next to a thick, curving plate. It clicked. The cab suddenly righted itself.
“Not my expertise,” I said.
Erikal shouted for Meritus and Cleo to stop.
I had almost fallen when Erikal startled me. I leaned forward to get a look over the edge of the platform. In flight, high up in the cab, the drop looked short, but in truth the lower cave descended the height of three tall trees. I took a half step back.
Erikal looked down also. “This place is well beyond what I would have expected.”
“Do you think it’ll fly?”
“Yeah, we should be fine. You know I like to be a little redundant with my designs.”
A long sigh escaped me. “Good. Great. And you’re right; this place is . . . big. Like . . .” No appropriate words entered my mind. I shook my head.
“Eternity,” Erikal said, nodding. We stood next to each other, silent.
Prompted by Alana tapping on the glass, we returned to the interior of the now-straightened vehicle.
“How are you?” Alana asked.
“Fantastic,” I said in an intentionally dry tone. Alana let out a relaxed breath. I even detected a smile on her half-concealed lips. I did not expect someone so nervous would enjoy sarcasm.
Erikal adjusted the controls. “We’ll fly.”
The others yelped with relief.
I stared through the window at the door.
“I wonder where it leads to,” Cleo said, joining me. “It’s automatic; look at the controls.”
“Erikal said we can fly,” Alana said. “Let’s not tempt this place.”
“We can try the door another time, perhaps,” Meritus said and shrugged, possibly to appease Alana.
But she returned the favor with scorn. Her eyes narrowed, and her jaw dropped. “You want to return?” She stood, visibly agitated and befuddled. “We shouldn’t even be here and don’t know if we can leave.”
“Erikal said the cab will fly. This could be our one chance,” Cleo said, looking at me. I nodded, trying not to seem hesitant. “Giels,” she added, “is your recorder activated? We’ll certainly want to remember this.”
I fumbled in my pocket and pulled it out. I thought I had activated it after Erikal played the message, but it had remained off. I pressed the record button. After dropping it back in my pocket, I stared hard at the door.
Cleo touched my arm, and I turned to her. She gave me a warm, angelic smile. I had resisted every step of our adventure, from its planning to where we stood then. And yet, the girl I loved more than anyone somehow seemed to think I wanted to open the door. How can she believe that?
I returned the smile and nodded, and I meant the nod. Somehow I found that I wanted to open the door. Had Cleo’s misplaced confidence in me given me time to find my adventurousness? I had chosen to go outside. I had leaned over the precipice. Something bubbled in my heart and warmed my stomach when I thought about any of it. An emotion entered me that I never had much need for in the Deo. Was it bravery, the hallmark of the heroes of old? My shaking and the pit in my stomach left. I liked—no, loved—the confidence and certainty that joined the feeling. I feared it would be fleeting, and I wanted it to last.
“Friends,” I said, “outside is actually fine. The air is good, and I felt no spirits.”
“I’m not going without the spear,” Meritus said. “You know, in case something’s beyond the door.”
“Spears? Against the souls and spirits?” Alana retorted. “Are you going mad?” She turned to me. “Giels, you should know more than anyone how dangerous this is.”
“The door’s the only thing of our size down here. Like it’s meant for mortals,” I said, still overcome with confidence. The recorder’s weight pulled at my pocket. The realization that it was recording my certainty added pride to my bravery.
Meritus raised his eyebrows, puckered his lips, and nodded. He seemed impressed with my courage. “Great point, Giels. If we can open it, then we open it just a little—just like your Talik says.”
Alana relented with a sigh and looked up to the ceiling as if giving our faraway Sun a prayer.
Without a word, Cleo exited the cab and pulled me with her. Meritus and Erikal followed. Alana joined us, but she shook hard—from the crisp air or o
ut of fear, or both—and shuffled back into the vehicle.
The four of us approached the door. Cleo slid her hand into the door’s inset handle and pulled on it, but the door did not move. We examined the control panel to the left. Nothing about it looked familiar. The screen was flat glass, instead of metal like our computer screens, and light, not movable etchings, created the unrecognizable shapes on it. Their dim glow seemed magical, and perhaps they were.
The buttons were all grey except for a yellow one and a red one and were arrayed in a seemingly useless configuration.
Cleo put her finger on the yellow button. “This one?” She pressed it. The wall gave a whoosh sound and then a click.
We all jumped back. “It’s that easy,” Cleo said.
She pulled the handle, and the door slowly moved. It pivoted like a cab’s door, but along its right side instead of at the top.
“Cleo, we’re only going to open it a little,” I said, fearing what may lie beyond.
She nodded.
Meritus, who stood on my left, started walking backwards. He bit his nails. Not knowing what may be unleashed, I swallowed and joined him. The door was thick, so it took a moment for a visible gap to appear between the door and jamb. As Cleo pulled, a sliver of a dark place beyond revealed itself.
Cleo widened it to where a person could squeeze through. No odor, no light, or beings of any sort manifested, but dread surged through my body. Meritus and I looked at each other. We acknowledged each other’s apprehension, but we did not run. We stood as still as statues, like prey attempting to go unnoticed. Perhaps fear itself escaped through the opening. If so, we resisted it. Erikal produced a small artificial light from his pocket and tossed it through the gap.
There it was, as clear as anything in Sunlight. Although no sound, no movement or strange beings escaped, the space beyond lit up with color.
Yellow.
Bright yellow. My growing fear mingled with sudden excitement. Erikal and Cleo watched me as I walked to the opening and saw a room the size of a large closet. It contained another door on its opposite side. Yellow covered every surface, but otherwise, the room was empty.
“There’s nothing here,” I said, “just a golden color, and another door.”
The others crowded around, creating a collective push, and the entry swung wide open. We stepped into the little space. The air was warmer within.
Alana cried out from the cab and, to my surprise, ran from the Silver Dare and crammed in with us. We embraced her. In the excitement, Cleo and Erikal pulled on the handle of the second door, but it had no control panel and held tight. That door would not move, but it did not matter. We hooted or cried out with wonderment.
The room was the color of the morning Sun, the color of hope, and a new beginning—of passing a threshold. A color rarely used, even by our shaman’s council, because of the rarity of golden pigments in nature and the virtue of its shining radiance. The color inspired as much awe as the most precious gems.
So much yellow had the energy to power our souls.
Cleo articulated the sentiment. “It’s a sign.”
We all turned to the second door, as though of one mind. Strange bas-relief patterns adorned it and its jambs, not unlike our traditional stone-carved knots, but less appealing and less organized. After talking it through for a bit, we agreed that the marking could be some sort of electronics or interactive shapes, like buttons, but we had no idea how to use them. Cleo touched several of them, but nothing happened.
Everyone looked at Erikal. It seemed natural. He had brought us there; perhaps he knew what to do next.
“Giels,” he said, “in the exterior side compartment to the left is the new do-it-all.”
“Which left?”
“When facing the front.”
I ran to the cab. After I opened one of the articulated curved panels on the exterior, the massive device—nearly three feet tall—floated out. Standard do-it-alls were half the size. I pushed it, sending it hovering towards the yellow room, but I had not shoved it hard enough. It slowed and stopped just before the threshold.
After I jogged to the device, my friends looked at me with anticipation. Erikal seemed nonchalant, as though he was preparing to do a routine chore. Cleo’s eyes had filled with excited uncertainty. Meritus gave me a look of conspiratorial mischief. Alana shot me an unsettled sidelong glance.
It seemed we all understood what Erikal had planned to do with the giant do-it-all. He wanted to destroy a door in the immortal realm. But disbelief and an adolescent desire to conform mitigated my horror. In a way, the perceived blatant rule-breaking excited me, even though I knew nothing of the Wind Cave’s rules. And somehow, I felt innocent through it all. After all, I would not be holding the machine.
I pushed the device towards Erikal. As soon as it entered the room, it dropped to the floor with a bang that reverberated through the cave. Alana and I both hollered in response. Meritus laughed at us.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Erikal grabbed a handhold on the device to pull it up. It did not move. “It’s almost as if, past this door, there’s no lifting power.”
Grunting, he used both hands, his muscles swelling under his shirt. The others looked on, mesmerized, while the device slid the width of a finger.
I straightened my thin frame and broadened my shoulders. I could have been intimidated by my friend; the feeling tried to seep in. Our predicament could have paralyzed me. But I allowed neither.
My sudden boldness had so far kept me motivated. I wanted to retain the positive disposition—just to survive the adventure, if for nothing else.
“Didn’t realize how heavy this thing is,” Erikal said.
I helped him. As soon as we dragged it halfway back over the threshold, it shot up some eighty feet and, with an enormous clang, slammed into the cave’s sidewall, which rounded above like a barreled arch. The machine bounced and hovered somewhere far away in the dim light. The force of it flying up had knocked me against the door jamb. Erikal stumbled back a step himself and adjusted his tucked shirt. He looked up and cleared his throat. “We can leave it there.”
“And maybe we can leave the recorder here, by this door,” Meritus said.
“But we’ve come this far,” Erikal said while rubbing his chin.
Cleo gently touched the unopened door. “I wish we knew whether the message in the recorder is a temptation or a command.” She turned to Alana. “You believe it wanted to return through the Wind Cave.”
Alana put both of her hands into her hair. “I don’t know, Cleo. I imagined Erikal would toss it into the cave at the Boromount Plateau and let the gods do the rest. If we can’t go further, then this is obviously not the right way.”
“I agree,” I said. I had forced myself to maintain confidence, but I did not want to force my stupidity. Despite having retrieved the do-it-all—and all but encouraging Erikal to break open the door—I came to my senses and decided to use my authority of lore to herd my friends back into the cab. “The underlying theme of all our ancient stories about the Wind Cave is that curiosity kills.”
“Would a god kill those who do a task for them?” Cleo said.
I could not explain the message. I could not explain our ability to descend into the cave. But I knew Salihandron did not need our help to escort a human spirit. An idea came to me that made me laugh nervously. “Cleo, that’s all Salihandron does—you know, kill. He’s the death escort.”
Meritus laughed too. “Good point, Giels.” He turned to Cleo. “It is a good point.” She stared at him, and he straightened his face.
“You said it yourself, Giels, wisely,” Cleo added. “It’s as though we’re part of a new story.”
“Perhaps so,” I responded. I hardly understood what I had meant, but Cleo seemed to have latched on to it. If we had entered our own tale, then I thought we had come to a good ending. I searched my mind for a reason to get her back into the cab, and us to safety. An idea hit, something we had been
saying all along. “If this is Salihandron, then we’ll have no choice but to do the god’s bidding. If so, then if we walk back to the cab and fly home to tell the council of our discovery, we will either be stopped, or doing so will be the god’s will.” I stepped forward, still reveling in my confidence. “This door won’t open. If we’re meant to be here, we’d only need to knock on the door”—I knocked—“and say hello.”
With a whoosh, the door shot rightward into the wall.
As fast as the door slid away, a thick grey cloud burst through, swirling into the little room and beyond, blinding me. “Hell!” I cried out. I sucked in air to yell again, but my lungs screamed with pain. My throat closed up. The dark, airy mass carried with it the scent of something ancient, forgotten.
My chest heaved to expel it. I strained to breathe. Escape! I fumbled, bumped, and coughed my way out of the yellow room and back to the cave.
I ran within the horrid, expanding shroud.
“Stay to the wall!” Erikal shouted. “Don’t run.”
I stopped. The ledge. Oh, the Sun, how close am I? I did not know which way to go. Dropping, I crawled my way, feeling for a precipice or wall as I went. I grew lightheaded. “It’s drowning us!” I said through a fit of coughs.
“Evil!” Alana screamed from nearby. The ghostly thing swirled around us, unmistakably a spirit come to form, coating my skin, choking my lungs, and filling me with existential panic. Alana had said it—evil.
The swirling stopped. The grey cloud thinned a little as it grew ever larger. Covering my mouth with my sleeve, I managed to take in short breaths. The copper and chromadium color of the Silver Dare revealed itself through the haze. The others piled back into the cab, and I hastened behind them. Alana pulled me in and slammed the door shut.
Everyone coughed relentlessly. I hacked up thick, dark phlegm and spat it onto one of Cleo’s pillows. Meritus gasped for breath. Cleo pounded him on the back, and he spat out the same black substance I had.
Somehow, I had opened that second door. What in hell did I unleash?
Alana pleaded for Erikal to lift the cab and fly away, but as if in a trance, he stood motionless, watching the formless dark entity outside drift under and around the Silver Dare.
