“Take the branch for a hundred paces or so, see if it leads anywhere interesting. Then come back to this one.”
The branch indeed extended over a hundred paces, but narrowed uncomfortably. At a hundred and fifty paces it dipped sharply downward, forming a crevasse ten feet long by three feet wide. Lee dropped a stone into the chasm: a faint clunk after several seconds indicating that it was deep, but not infinite.
“Back to the main passage, I guess,” said Sam.
A much wider cavern opened up after four hundred more paces.
“Shut off the lamp on your helmet,” said Sam.
A soft illumination filled the cavern, the glow of thousands of gems.
“Glow stones I guess,” said Lee. “It’s like looking up at the night sky. You first see a few stars, then hundreds, then thousands.”
“I wonder…” Sam donned the goggles Yrsa had loaned her. “Ooooh!”
“What? What’s ‘ooooh?’ ”
“Magic. The magic’s a lot stronger here.” She handed the goggles to Lee.
“Oh. It’s practically daylight with these things on. But everything looks weird. Reversed. Reminds me of something, I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“Like a photographic negative.”
“Yeah, like that.”
Lee gazed around the cavern, studying the different veins of ore. In contrast to the subtle striated patterns of minerals he had seen thus far, alternating minerals were more distinct, almost as if they had been embedded in the base rock. “But I think I’d get a headache wearing these things for long.” He handed them back to Sam.
“Don’t seem to bother me.”
The two proceeded through the chamber, the next tunnel being significantly larger than the prior one: wide enough for a locomotive to pass through and twice as high. Lee shut off the lamp on his helmet, scattered veins of glow stones now illuminating the passage like a full moon on a clear night: enough to see one’s way, as long as one paid sufficient attention to the exact placement of one’s feet.
The tunnel sloped downward, gently yet perceptibly.
Sam stopped to mark in her notebook. “Four thousand paces.”
“At least things are getting interesting,” said Lee. “Though I hope we hit water again one of these days. I’m a little thirsty.”
“Me too.” She cocked her head, adjusting the goggles. “Looks like there’s another big cavern ahead. Let’s hope things don’t get too interesting.”
The pair emerged a hundred paces further into an even larger cavern: this one as tall as the inside of a cathedral, and longer than one could see. Columns of rock extended floor to ceiling, some slender as tree trunks, some a hundred feet across. The cavern was brighter too, to the naked eye like the sky at dusk, illuminated not just by glow stones, but crystalline columns poking from curves and folds in the floor, wall and ceiling.
“Oh dear,” said Sam.
“Oh dear? Is this a good oh dear, or a bad oh dear?”
Sam handed him the goggles.
“Oh dear,” said Lee.
Through the goggles, the cavern was as bright as daylight. Minerals that glowed only faintly to the naked eye shone brighter than the mantle of the finest kerosene lamp.
“It’s like being inside one of those… at the natural history museum they have those rocks. Look like an ordinary rock from the outside, but on the inside—”
“Geode.”
“Yes, those. Like being inside a geode.”
“But it doesn’t look like it’s all minerals,” said Sam.
Lee scrutinized the cavern walls more carefully. “You’re right. Some look like mushrooms… or trees. Tree-sized mushrooms? I dunno.” Lee took a few more steps into the cavern, unsheathed his sword, and tapped the flat of the blade against the trunk of a tree mushroom standing twice his height. It clunked with a dull thud. “More like wood than mineral.” He handed the goggles back to Sam.
“And if there’s plants there could be animals. You remember what Yrsa said. An empty cavern is a safe cavern. And this one’s definitely not empty.” Sam donned the goggles and drew her crossbow.
“Hey, that’s a good look for you!” said Lee.
“Excuse me?”
“Haha! With the goggles and cloak and crossbow! You look like you belong on the cover of one of those science fiction magazines! Our heroine Samantha Moonphase battles the selenites!”
Sam shook her head. “I appreciate the vote of confidence. But brass goggles and a crossbow? It’ll never catch on.”
Chapter 27
Lee scanned the contours of the cavern. “So what now? This cavern’s enormous. Should we split up to map it?”
“We are not splitting up.”
“Just an idea. Anyway, I guess the choices are sticking to the perimeter or straight down the center.”
“I’d feel pretty exposed at the center.”
“Perimeter it is, then. Just let me know if those magic goggles of yours pick up anything interesting.”
The pair set out along the perimeter. The cavern was a strange mix of topography, certain rock formations smooth, rounded like worn sandstone, while others formed precise geometric shapes: prismatic crystals as thick as tree trunks. Mushrooms ranged from the size of a mighty oak to thin wafers that clung to the cavern walls. Signs of animal life were rare: insects, some fist-sized, some a bit larger, ignored the two.
“Oh dear.”
They froze. A dozen paces ahead stood a creature of extraordinary form—despite the fact that both Sam and Lee had significantly amended their definition of ‘extraordinary’ these past months.
Furthermore, saying ‘stood’ would imply standing on the ground, and this was not the case. This creature clung to the cavern wall: a hundred knife-edged insectoid limbs from a segmented body allowed it to latch onto the vertical surface. Its centipede body was at least forty feet long, thick as a barrel, and was topped with a humanoid torso encased in chitinous plates. It carried a vicious polearm with a spike and hooked blade. Its head swiveled toward them, a pair of bulbous compound eyes scrutinizing the two mammalian intruders.
Sam leveled her crossbow at the creature. It responded with a series of clicks from a set of spiky mandibles.
“Wait,” said Lee.
The creature clicked again, this time waving its polearm.
Sam lowered her crossbow.
They backed up two steps.
More clicking from the creature.
“Lee, if you have any nature-boy advice, now’s the time. I do not want to get hit by that thing.”
“There’s something weird about its weapon,” said Lee.
“I like a discussion on comparative weapon analysis as much as the next lady, but let’s focus on something a little more useful to our continued existence?”
“I know polearms—must have read a hundred books on knights and armor and weapons as a kid.”
“And we are on Arvia, not medieval Earth, thank you very much.”
The clicking sounded again: sharper, more aggressive. The creature waved its polearm and scuttled further down the wall.
“I’ve read a dozen more here. I’m telling you that weapon makes no sense. The length, the spike, the scallop on the blade.”
Sam paused. The weapon was odd. Portions that appeared to be sharp pointed the wrong direction, blunted protrusions were too small to inflict a mortal wound on even a human-sized opponent. “You’re right.” She racked her brain. A weapon was just another mechanical device. She knew how to analyze mechanical devices. Mass, leverage, inertia… “It’s a tool, not a weapon.”
Lee glanced at the creature, the floor, the ceiling, “A harvesting tool? That looks like a basket over there.”
“Could be. We may have just barged into this guy’s mushroom farm. What now?”
“Show it we’re not trying to steal its mushrooms? I dunno. Too bad we couldn’t ask it the way out.”
Sam addressed the creature directly. “Hello. I don’t suppose that langu
age electro-shock we received when we arrived enables you to understand us?”
The creature clicked several more times.
“What if you did the bird signal? The one Shin did? Remember when we encountered the other party?”
“Prime numbers. Yeah. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll turn out to be an insectoid mushroom farmer with a math hobby.”
Sam clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, sounding off ‘one-two-three-five.’
The creature repeated the sequence.
“It could just be mimicking us,” said Sam. “It might not be as intelligent as we are.”
“It might be more intelligent than we are.”
“Maybe more than you.”
The creature uttered a series of seven clicks, followed by eleven.
“I think that answers the question.”
“Not quite,” said Lee. “How many in a row does it have to get before we can agree it’s more intelligent than you?”
“Very funny. Now what?”
“Sling your crossbow for a start.”
“Oh! Good point. Sorry, I forgot about that.”
“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to bug boy over there.”
Sam slung the crossbow on her back, pausing as it bumped against her knapsack. “Lee, I’m about to do something incredibly risky. If I don’t make it, please make sure I have a nice epitaph on my tombstone.”
“Incredibly risky? Isn’t that my job?”
“That would be incredibly stupid. There’s a difference.” She set both crossbow and knapsack on the cavern floor, fished out the sketched map, and took a pair of steps toward the creature, holding the map in front of her.
It clicked, cocked its head, and scuttled down the cavern wall, stopping just three steps distant. Well within range of its polearm that Sam really hoped was actually a mushroom picking tool.
“Hey, make sure the guy doesn’t think you’re offering it to him as a gift. That map’s our only way out.”
“Yeah, if I do, maybe you can offer to arm-wrestle him for it.” She gazed into the creature’s face. Its head was twice the size of her own. It had no visible nose, and a set of spiky mandibles around what might be a mouth. She did her best hand gesture to show that the map was intended to depict the cavern, and that the tunnel was blocked.
“Hey, I just thought of something. What if the guy doesn’t actually see like we do. Maybe he can’t even see what you’ve drawn on the map.”
Sam grimaced. “Not helping. Shut up.” She wasn’t sure what bothered her more, the distraction, or the fact that by Lee’s standards it was a damn insightful observation.
Or the fact that he thought of it before she did.
The creature slid its non-polearm into a webbed scabbard on its back, glared at the parchment for several long seconds, then pointed at the far corner of the cavern.
Sam took a slight bow and stepped back.
“I hope that’s the way out.”
“While you’re there, why don’t you ask if he knows where we can find some of those crystals you need.”
“And while I’m at it, I’ll ask if there’s a hot springs where we could enjoy a nice bath.”
“Oh, that’d be lovely.”
Sam grumbled, winced, and fished in her knapsack for one of the crystals. “With our luck this will turn out to be some sort of sacred gem, and we’ll be executed.”
“Ohh! Bug blasphemers. That’s catchy!”
“Shut up, Lee.” She cupped the clear prismatic crystal in both hands, extending it in front of her.
The creature clicked and gestured to a different location in the cave.
She again bowed and backed away slowly.
“I had another idea!”
“No more ideas! I’m not asking for anything else.”
“We should leave him something. A gift. As a thank you. It’s only polite.”
Lee you idiot! Sam gnashed her teeth. The worst part was that he was right. For at least the third time today.
She again fished through her knapsack. “What do you think they’d like?”
“I dunno. Something exotic from the surface.”
“Right. I just so happen to have this lovely bouquet of flowers that I keep in my knapsack for such occasions.”
“Here.” Lee tossed her a walnut.
“Good as anything I guess.” She set the nut, the size of a tennis ball, on the floor in front of the creature, bowed for the third time, and backed away.
The two stepped away gingerly, making their way around the thick trunk of one of the tree mushrooms before turning their back on the creature.
Lee clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Nice job with that.”
“Yeah. With our luck they’ll turn out to have a nut allergy and we’ll be responsible for starting a war.”
“We’re already at war.”
“Good point. Gonna have to change that cover, though.”
“Cover?”
“Of my book. It should read ‘Samantha Moonphase negotiates with the selenites.’ ”
Lee snorked. “I’ll buy a copy of your book, you buy a copy of my game.”
“Deal.”
◊ ◊ ◊
The two located a vein of power crystals, harvesting several handfuls, which Sam estimated to be more than enough to complete the lightning thrower. They found a tunnel leading the approximate direction of the old mine shaft, also about where the strange insect creature indicated.
The passage sloped downward at irregular intervals, with damp stone in low spots transitioning to puddles of water, which eventually became shallow rivulets.
Sam knelt atop an elevated rock and pushed the goggles to her forehead. “I’m hardly seeing anything with these any more.”
Lee switched on the lamp in his helmet. “But that’s good, isn’t it? It means we’re getting close to the surface.”
She pulled out the map. “Maybe. Three thousand paces. The tunnel seems to lead away from the center of the mountain, it’s just that it’s sloping downward. The further we get, the wetter it gets. At this rate we’ll drown before we make it out.”
“At least we won’t die of thirst.”
“Yeah. Our insectoid colleague may well have sent us to our doom. Into a submerged cavern, or toward a nest of those vicious scarabs.”
“Oh, he seemed alright to me. And he hasn’t led us astray so far.”
“We don’t even know that it was a ‘he,’ ” said Sam.
“You were closer. You didn’t peek under his kilt?”
Sam glared at him, uttered a dull growl, and examined the map again. “Don’t suppose you have any more useful comments?”
Lee scrutinized the sketch of the caverns, then flipped back to the mine map. “We should be close. We really should.”
“There’s a few more side passages to try.”
The next large chamber turned out to be crescent shaped, taller than it was wide, with a pool covering the bottom.
Lee shone the beam of his lamp around the cavern. “Looks like we’ll have to wade.”
“Great,” muttered Sam, stepping into the calf-deep pool. “Now is when he decides to get enthusiastic about baths.”
They continued, the water rising from calf deep to knee deep, finally hitting thigh deep as Sam marked three thousand nine hundred on the cavern wall with her rapidly disappearing stick of luminescent pink chalk.
“Do you think those scarabs swim?” said Sam.
“I don’t know,” said Lee. “I’m going to assume no.”
“So we could drown or get torn apart by giant insects, but not both at once?”
“What can I say, I’m a glass half-full kinda guy.”
Sam shook her head. Though the corners of her lips may have curled upward. “Brrrh! Is it me, or has the water gotten colder here?”
Lee sloshed his hand through the water. “You’re right. This might be our way out.”
“And you’ve arrived at this conclusion how?”
�
�Water this cold has to be coming from the surface. There!” Lee pointed to the far corner of the cavern.
The pair waded to a spot where water gurgled into the cavern.
“This channel might lead to the river. Of course we don’t know how far, or even if it’s wide enough to swim through.”
“Kill the lights,” said Sam.
It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to total blackness. Yet after a minute, a faint glow could be seen emanating from the channel.
“Could be glow stones of course,” said Sam, turning her lamp back on.
“I’ll go first,” said Lee. “I’ll leave my knapsack here, and tie a rope around my waist. If it is a way out, I can pull you and the gear through.”
“If it does lead to the river it’ll mean swimming against the current. In freezing water.” She looked into Lee’s eyes. “You’d have to be a damn strong swimmer.”
“It would dishonor my namesake if I weren’t.”
“Didn’t he finally drown?”
“I’ll try to do one better.”
Lee removed his knapsack and stripped off his armor. “I’d be a little faster if I stripped down entirely. But as cold as it is, I think it’s better with a little protection.”
“With our luck, some beast will jump us as we emerge.”
“Good point,” said Lee. “Ditch the gear if you must, but I’d rather not be unarmed and unarmored.”
“Me neither.”
Lee clapped a hand on her shoulder. “We can do this, Sam. We’ll make it to the surface, we’ll make it to Hazelhearth, you’ll complete the lightning thrower with these final crystals, and be the hero of Hazelhearth.”
“We’ll be the heroes of Hazelhearth.”
“I can’t. I’m already Leander in this story.” He fastened the rope around his waist.
Sam cracked a broad grin. “Good luck, Lee.”
Lee took three deep breaths, ducked underwater, and took the first powerful strokes.
Sam shut the lamp off and began feeding rope. “Good luck you fool,” she whispered.
Lee swam ahead, doing the frog stroke, the channel barely wide enough to accommodate him. The light ahead was dim, amorphous, giving no clear indication of distance.
Twenty seconds passed.
As a teen, Lee had once held his breath for over a minute underwater. It seemed a lifetime ago.
Hazelhearth Hires Heroes Page 24
