by Stuart Jaffe
Roni grinned. “Shouldn’t we sleep on it? I mean, I could use some rest before hiking into a cavern for days.”
“The longer we wait, the more likely that Gram and Sully will attempt to stop us. Who do you think I was casting that spell against? Gram has very strong feelings about this subject, and she will not want me going to the Isle. So, we must be on our way. If you are too tired, we will find a place to rest once we are out of Gram’s reach. Okay? Good. Now, let us begin.”
Chapter 8
An hour later, Roni walked down the stairs from the main floor of the bookstore into the basement. The Grand Library was further below ground, but this low-ceiling, musty area filled with boxes of old periodicals and dusty dictionaries led to the door with the medieval padlock — Gram’s private office. Normally, the door remained closed and locked, but Elliot had already used a spell to “pick” the lock.
The last time Roni entered this room without permission, she discovered the caverns and her whole worldview shifted beneath her feet. She had been terrified to go in there. This time, however, she went in willingly — with a purpose.
Fluorescent lights hung from a tiled ceiling which only added to the utilitarian style of the room. Like an old 1970s cop show, the room appeared to be a metal box with metal shelves for the numerous books Gram collected. But unlike any room elsewhere in the world, a large hole in the back wall opened into a cavern.
Elliot stood by this hole. He wore a long winter coat and a tweed, newsboy cap. Roni shouldered a backpack as she approached.
“All set,” she said. She had clothes for three days and a folder with hardcopy printouts of the maps. “There are missing chunks,” she said. “The maps will only help us so far.”
With a grandfatherly smile, Elliot tapped the side of his head. “This still works. I shall get us to the river, and the river will get us to the Isle.”
“Just in case, I also brought this,” she said, pulling out Waterfield’s journal. “I haven’t had the chance to read it thoroughly, but I’m guessing there’s more in here to help us.”
Bringing such an old and irreplaceable text should have caused her deep worry — it was risky, to say the least — but nothing could be more essential than the words of a man who had already made the journey. Such vital information far outweighed her concerns over possible damage done to the journal.
“Yes,” Elliot said. “That is a good backup, in case something happens to me.”
Roni didn’t like his tone, but she let it pass. Elliot stepped forward, and Roni glimpsed the cart behind him — a wagon with a metal rod to pull it, wooden crate sides, and four rugged wheels. Inside, she saw jugs of water, boxes of food, camping gear, and clothes. An uncomfortable sensation crawled across her skin.
“Wow,” she muttered. “I never thought to bring any of that stuff.”
He snickered. “Don’t feel bad. My first trip into the caverns, I didn’t even have the sense to bring a change of clothes. We were only going to fetch an empty book from a specific spot, and we only planned to be gone a few hours. But I fell, slid down a muddy incline and splashed into a puddle the size of this room. The water was cold and the air cool, and there was no easy way back up. Gram and Sully had to carefully climb down, which took a half-hour, and then we had to walk far out of our way to get back to where we were originally — which required most of the day. I could not do so sopping wet. So, I striped down and proceeded for several hours in the nude.”
Roni laughed. “I’m sure Sully never let you live that down.”
“Nor your grandmother. She kept threatening to take my picture.”
“I can’t imagine that, but I’ll take your word for it.” With a shrug, she added, “I guess that’s all we need. Let’s go.”
“One more thing.” Elliot reached into his wagon and pulled out a leather-bound journal. “A proper researcher will document her experiences.”
Roni kept her eyes on the journal in case she cried. She accepted the gift as a priceless heirloom. Passing her hand across the top, she noticed the silk ribbon used to mark her place and smelled the rich aroma of the pages. Holding the journal at her side, she stepped in close and hugged Elliot with her free arm.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I can think of no greater honor than to take this first big step with you. Now, let us begin.”
Before Roni heard Gram’s voice, she heard Gram’s footsteps. Turning towards the doorway, she saw the familiar scowl. She could feel everything falling apart.
Gram gripped the cross around her neck. “I don’t know which of you two to be more angry with. At least Roni’s been consistently defiant from the start. But you. How could you go behind my back like this?”
“I am not behind your back,” Elliot said, his tone more forceful than Roni had expected.
“Really? So, it was merely coincidence that you cast a dampening spell when you went to my granddaughter’s apartment.”
“Not at all. I wanted our conversation to be private. Leading this group does not give you the right to know all that we think, feel, and do. It most certainly does not give you the right to spy on us.”
Caught between two angry old people, Roni scooted out of the way.
Though Gram had to lift her chin in order to meet Elliot’s eyes, she seemed the larger of the two. “I was looking out for the safety of my granddaughter and you, for that matter. But everybody is hellbent on doing whatever they want. That won’t work. We have to be united or we will lose any battle we encounter.”
“I agree. Yet you seem to consider the word united to mean that we follow your rules at all times.”
Roni cringed, bracing for the tirade Gram would unleash. But instead, Gram stepped back with a disappointed grin. She glanced at Roni. “I didn’t want to believe him, but Sully told me that you saw things this way. And now I hear it from my own teammate, too.” To Elliot, she added, “Do you really think of me as a dictator? Come now, you know me better than that. I admit I am strong-willed, but I have a duty to maintain the strength of this group, the safety of us, as well as that of the entire universe.”
Elliot placed his hand on her shoulder. “That duty belongs to us all. Whether she knows it or not, I am sure that Roni would be taking this journey alone, if necessary. I would not let that happen.”
To Roni’s further surprise, Gram’s chin trembled. “But she wants to go to the Isle.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to face them?”
“I have hid for too long.” Elliot glanced back at the opening to the caverns. “And for Roni, this is not about my past.”
“Oh?”
Roni stepped in front of Elliot. “This about Yal-hara.”
Gram laced her fingers as her face darkened. “I see. You’re after the kyolo stones.”
“You know about them?”
“It’s a myth. Yal-hara is old and desperate for anything that’ll get her home.”
Roni looked toward the caverns. “I’m still going. I’ll find out for myself if it’s a myth.”
Gram opened her arm toward Roni. “Then we all go — together.” Roni stared at her grandmother, trying to piece together what had happened. “Come on,” Gram said. “I expect a hug.”
Rushing over, Roni wrapped her arms around Gram. “You’re really okay with this?”
“Not at all. But this is clearly something the two of you need to do, and I will not sit upstairs while you both risk your lives.”
“But there’s nothing —”
“Oh Lord, my dear, you must learn this right away — any trip into the caverns is a risk to your life. Any single step in there must be treated with cautiousness and respect for danger. Understand?”
She nodded. “I will.”
“Good. Then I have only one question.” Gram pointed at Elliot’s cart. “What the heck is that?”
Elliot knocked his cane against the cart’s tires. “What? It is strong and easy to pull. You do not expect me to carry
all of these items.”
“That thing won’t last one day in the caverns. Once you get beyond the well-worn paths, there’s rugged terrain and muddy areas — you know all about those. I would be shocked if those tires didn’t pop flat within a few hours. And also —”
“Okay, okay. What do you suggest?”
“Sully, of course.”
Roni laughed. “Sully’s going to carry all of this?”
“No, not directly. But the moment I realized what Elliot was up to, I got Sully working.” She cocked her head toward the door. “Sully? You coming?”
From further in the basement, Sully’s voice rang out. “You people are so impatient. I’ll be there in a second.”
A moment later, he walked into the room. Behind him, on a rope, he brought in a full-sized donkey-golem made of clay. It had a broad, flat back and thick legs. Its head lacked a mouth but it did have eyes. Somewhere in its clay body, Sully had written Hebrew words on a slip of paper — a spell to create life from a non-living thing. He would have slipped the paper into the donkey form, whispered an incantation into its ear, and the donkey-golem would spring to life.
“One of these days,” Sully said, huffing as he walked, “you will give me more than a few hours’ notice and I’ll be able to create a beautiful creature instead of a mere semblance like this.”
“As long as it can haul our gear, I don’t care if it only had half of a head.”
Patting the donkey-golem’s flank, Sully said to it, “Don’t listen to that old crab. You’re more than labor to us. We appreciate all the hard work you’re about to do.”
Gram stepped in front of Roni and Elliot. “Come on, now. Quit gawking and help load her up.”
Although nothing that had happened went along with Roni’s expectations, part of her warmed at the idea of Elliot and Sully joining her. Even Gram’s presence gave Roni a small sense of comfort. The Old Gang knew the way to the Isle, and they knew the dangers to be found in the caverns. At least, she hoped they knew.
When they finished packing one section of the donkey-golem, Gram made a motion with her wrist. A thin, metal chain flew out of her sleeve. The chain wrapped itself around the gear, securing it to the donkey-golem.
After they had finished transferring all of the supplies, Gram gestured towards Elliot. “Last chance. You really want to do this?”
“It is long overdue.”
Gram gazed back over the team. She seemed to be weighing this final decision in her head. At length, and without further word, she led the way into the caverns. Elliot followed and Sully came up with his donkey-golem nudging along.
Roni stopped at the edge. She had done this before, yet it felt new. This was her first foray into the caverns as a member of the Parallel Society. This was her first time setting foot in the caverns having read that it existed in another universe. Whatever they encountered in there would become part of Society history. The idea filled her with a sense of importance — and dread.
Swallowing down her rising dark thoughts, she entered the caverns.
Chapter 9
For the first half hour, Roni could not have been more awed. Once they traveled beyond the small portion she had experienced a year ago, the caverns treated her with one astonishing view after another. Enormous ceilings with thousands of stalactites — sharp like teeth. Books leading to other universes hung on chains, dangling in the air like muted windchimes. Winding paths spiraled off into the dark, and narrow crevices had been worn smooth like glass.
In every direction, no matter how high up or how far away, Roni saw books. Endless books. Each one chained to the walls, chained to themselves, or lined up behind tightly wound chains. Some books occupied huge sections of wall by themselves while others had been crowded together, shoved into tiny spaces, locked away like prisoners. Each book opened to a rift into another universe. Hundreds of years of the Parallel Society capturing these rifts, putting them in these magic books, and housing them in these caverns. It looked full, yet Roni had seen the maps — there was room for hundreds of thousands more. Maybe millions.
The cavern air maintained a steady coolness — warmer than the autumn air outside in Olburg but chilly nonetheless. It smelled fresh, too. As if all the moss of a forest had found its way into the stone surrounding them.
Lighting from various decades had been strung along the pathway revealing the history of those who came before like striation patterns. Modern, small rectangles that cast enormous bright, pale light in one section. Bulky, brass lanterns that needed to be lit with matches in another. One section required Gram to spin a crank for a few seconds until dim amber lights came to life.
Further in, the lighting stopped, but the strong glow from massive numbers of phosphorescent rocks created an unreal beauty to guide their way. Shortly after, they reached a section of pure dark. Sully handed out flashlights. With slow, cautious steps they made their way through until they reached an area that resembled a playground — filled with nooks and tunnels and overpasses.
Sunlight bounced around. Elliot glanced back at Roni. “There are a lot of sections with natural light like this. As far as we know, nobody in the Society has ever located the source. Perhaps you’ll discover it someday.”
But no matter how beautiful the sights, no matter how amazing the history, eventually, the excitement lessened. They trudged along through more and more dark sections with little to see. They stayed quiet, focusing on the next step, and the next, and the next. The click of their walking, the jangle of their equipment, the clump of the donkey-golem echoed into the distance making a unique, cavern music. But even that sprinkling sound could not relieve the drudgery of doing nothing but walking.
By the time Gram called the day to an end, Roni’s mind had become a dull blankness nearly as dark as the lightless cavern sections. Scanning the area, she saw that Gram had picked a concave section of a large rock wall for their rest. A knee-high edge of stones had been formed by previous explorers. It took a crescent shape, and Sully went to work building a fire in the center — he had brought wood for this purpose but also warned that as they went further, they would be wise to pick up anything usable for the future.
Once he had a steady fire going, he removed a cooking pot, several bags of vegetables and meat, a box of spices, and a jug of water. “I hope you all are up for some stew. If not, you can eat it anyway because I’m not taking requests.”
Elliot and Gram examined the map printouts Roni had brought. They murmured to each other as they pointed out various sections.
And Roni — she rubbed her sore shoulders as she rested on a large, flat rock. Flexing her toes, she knew to keep her boots on and laced. If she took them off, chances were her feet would swell to the point that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to put her boots back on.
After about twenty minutes, she rose and dug out her new journal from her backpack. She hovered a pen over the first fresh, blank page. She wrote:
I don’t know what to write.
Bemused, she took a breath and gazed at the Old Gang. They all acted so calm and in control. She wondered how many times they had ventured into these caverns. Maybe one day, she too would act the same.
Resetting her pen to paper, she wrote:
My head is too full to know the best way to begin. Having spent a year reading the journals of other Society members before me, I feel that I should offer something profound in these pages. Maybe someday I will. Others have written journals that are poetic, vivid, and just far better than anything I could write. Still, this is my duty, I suppose, and I want to do it. I want to let the future Society members know what our lives were like, and as my experience grows, to know what I learn so that readers can learn, too. But as far as my first day hiking goes, I can only say that I am happy to finally be on my way. My feet ache and my muscles are cramped. I stink. Yet I can’t wait to get back at it tomorrow. To whoever will read this, I hope my first entry is enough.
She read over her words, grabbed the page, and ne
arly ripped it out. But before she could do so, she heard a strange sound. Something nearby hissed. Roni bolted upright and caught Gram staring at a spot off to the left. Snapping her fingers, Gram pulled Elliot and Sully’s attention.
A bone-white creature skittered onto a rock. It had the wrinkled, scrawny look of a furless cat and an overall alabaster coloring. On some parts — especially around the mouth — the skin bordered on translucent. Though no bigger than a terrier, the creature’s movements reminded Roni of a gorilla. Black, raisin eyes darted from Roni to Gram to the boys. Once again, it hissed, revealing a mouthful of teeth like jagged rocks.
“It’s okay,” Roni said as if talking to a frightened dog. She smiled at the creature and moved closer. “We won’t hurt you.”
“Roni, freeze,” Gram said. The creature backed away at the harsh voice.
Sully said, “Perhaps I can —”
“No. You stay by Roni. Keep her safe.”
Roni looked over at Gram. “Safe? It’s just a little —”
The creature jumped onto a rock closer to Roni. She stumbled back, unable to stop the surprised screech from escaping her lips. Just a short sound, but enough to scare the creature. Sully put his hands on Roni’s shoulders, steadying her with his firm stance.
The creature thrust out its chest and hissed. Gram moved towards it, her arms out as if she intended to tackle the thing should it leap forward. Locking her eyes on the creature’s every movement, Gram said, “Elliot, get me the green book from the donkey-golem.”
Elliot nodded and cautiously backed away. Gram stepped forward. The creature rocked its shoulders before moving in a tight circle. It clearly did not like the situation, but it also did not appear willing to back down.
“Elliot?” Gram said. Her right arm lowered and her hand pulled into her sleeve.
“Got it,” he said, coming up to her side. He held a large green book similar to all the books chained to the walls.
