“I can’t stop thinking about them,” Trilla told the prince. She lay atop a down-filled comforter in their tent, surrounded by rose petals, her head resting on a throw pillow, the soft curves of her body made more seductive by the thin silk of her nightgown.
Palden propped himself on an elbow, poured some Chianti from a silver decanter into two crystal goblets, handing one to her and keeping one for himself. Everything about her was lovely—her golden curls, her milky breasts, her slender waist and perfect little toes.
Trilla took a sip of wine and lay back down. Her hair fanned against the pillow, nightgown clinging, for just a moment, between her thighs. The prince felt a stirring in his loins.
“What is it?” she asked.
Palden shrugged and smiled. “I apologize,” he said with easy charm. “I know I was gawking like a schoolboy...again. The wine must be going to my head. I feel warm all over.”
Trilla’s face flushed and, after an awkward pause, she looked away. “I just can’t,” she said. “Not yet. I promise…once Gaven and Andaris are found, things will be different.”
“If you would just try not to worry so much, maybe….”
“How?” she snapped. “We don’t even know where they are, or what might have happened to them, and here we lay, as if on holiday or something.”
“We don’t have to live like savages just because we’re traveling through the wilderness,” said the prince. “I mean, in a sense, this is our honeymoon. We deserve to be pampered a bit.”
The inside of the tent was seven feet wide, twelve feet long, and tall enough for them to stand in without having to duck their heads. Each evening, Palden’s personal entourage set it up and filled it with his things—with his princely belongings from home.
Twin oil lamps hung from the main support pole. There was an oval mirror in the corner, a cherrywood chest that doubled as a chair, a collapsible writing table, a basin of water, a silver tray of food, several bottles of wine, and a pull cord that, when tugged on, would ring a bell outside and bring his servants running.
“And as for your friends,” Palden continued, “I’m sure they’re fine. Gaven’s a seasoned veteran, and Andaris, as he demonstrated earlier, is more resilient than he appears.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked.
“Absolutely. I mean…they have their tents, just like us. Why, I bet they’re tucked away warm and cozy as we speak.” He took a long swallow of his wine and smiled. “I’ll tell you what…if they’re not back when the weather clears, I’ll send some men to go find them. All right?”
She snuggled closer to him and closed her eyes. “All right,” she whispered.
***
Andaris could hear Gaven fumbling in the dark with something, mumbling and cursing. There was a ripping noise...then a spark. In that brief flash of light, Andaris saw the big man attempting to catch fire to a strip of cloth. Before the afterimage faded from Andaris’ vision, Gaven tried again, and then again, the flashes illuminating his strained expression in eerie relief.
At last the cloth took and began to burn. He cut his eyes to Andaris, contracted pupils making him look feral. “Start tearing more strips,” he said.
“Out of what?” Andaris asked.
“Out of whatever. Your cloak, a blanket, your breeches for all I care. Just hurry, before it goes out!”
Feeling foolish, Andaris took one of the wool blankets from his saddlebags and began ripping. Gaven pulled a silver flask from one of his pouches and, with a self-satisfied expression, held it up to the light. “Always pays to have a bit of whiskey on ya,” he said.
Andaris handed him a handful of strips. Muttering about what a waste it was, Gaven drenched the strips in the whiskey, wrapped them around the handle of his shovel, and touched its end to the flame. The spirit soaked fibers caught and, after a moment, filled the space with bright, flickering light.
Andaris squinted against the sudden brilliance. “Good thinking,” he said. “Now what?”
“Now,” Gaven replied, his deep voice echoing down the passage, “we follow this tunnel and hope to Rodan it leads somewhere a bit...roomier.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Andaris asked.
Gaven pointed to the wall. “You see those marks? They look like chisel marks, don’t they? Which makes me think this tunnel is manmade. Why anyone would go to all the trouble of chiseling such a small tunnel into the side of a mountain, I don’t know. But that’s beside the point. I don’t understand why people do half the things they do. What matters is that manmade tunnels usually lead somewhere, don’t they?”
“Yeah, but what if this one doesn’t?”
“If it doesn’t, then you will have to turn around, as I cannot, go back to the entrance, and try to dig through the snow.”
Andaris just stared at him, thinking how fraught with danger such an undertaking would be.
“Well, come on,” Gaven said. “This torch won’t burn forever.”
And so, with their faith hanging by a thread, they began the slow, awkward crawl into the unknown, every inch taking them farther from a world they recognized, into one they had yet to fathom, its present scope limited only by the ever changing borders of whimsy. On and on they went, moving on hands and knees across the furtive landscape of imagination’s child, a place both frightening and delightful to behold, different to all, its features shaped by the tidal passions of its creators.
More than once, Andaris feared Gaven had managed to get himself stuck. This time he was sure of it. But like before, the big man bowed his shoulders, sucked in his gut, and bulled his way through. “Feels like I’m being birthed,” he grunted.
Despite everything, Andaris laughed, for his friend looked utterly ridiculous—the part of him he could see, that is. Gaven seemed able to find humor in almost any situation. Andaris had always viewed people such as him with a certain degree of awe. Happiness came to them so easily, while he had to struggle for every fleeting moment. How did they do it? Perhaps if he hung around Gaven long enough some of his exuberance would begin to rub off on him. He certainly had plenty to spare.
They continued on like this, through the clenching bowels of the earth, for what felt like an eternity, becoming more and more concerned about how the passage continued to angle downward, ever deeper towards the roots of the mountain.
Andaris was about to suggest a break, when Gaven came to a sudden stop. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
Gaven looked back at him. “The tunnel,” he said, face slack with shock. “It….” He swallowed and tried again. “I can see the end.”
Andaris couldn’t believe his ears. “The end?” he whispered.
“Yeah,” Gaven replied. “I’m afraid so.” For a moment neither of them moved nor spoke. It was quite a thing to wrap their minds around, for they both knew that an end to the tunnel might mean an end to them.
“Are you sure?” asked Andaris.
“It’s right in front of me,” Gaven said. “Believe me, I wish it wasn’t. Any closer and I’d be able to reach out and touch it.”
Andaris sighed. “Sorry…I didn’t mean to imply…. It’s just hard to accept, I guess. I mean, why dig this far, and then just stop? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Like I said before, I don’t understand why people do half the things they do. Could be they were following a vein of gold. Could be they were just crazy. Who knows?”
The thought of crawling back alone held little appeal for Andaris. It was too much like before, when he was lost in the caverns. “So...you want me to just leave you here?”
“I wouldn’t say want,” Gaven answered. “I’ve always hated confined spaces, but I don’t see what else we can do. There’s no way I can turn around, and it would take more than just you to pull me past some of those narrow spots. I’m sure after a couple of weeks I’d be trim enough to manage it, but I don’t think we have the air for that, especially the way this thing is burning. Oh, speaking of which, you’ll be needing this, won’t you?” Gav
en handed him the torch and flask of whiskey, a somewhat precarious accomplishment considering the awkward angle and cramped environs. “Remember to add new strips every so often to keep it going. It’s a whole lot easier to feed a fire than to start one.”
Andaris held the torch at arms length, looking at it like it was a snake ready to strike, the coiling flames reflecting in his eyes, dancing madly about. If music rather than air led the dance, the notes would be gleeful, merciless, and burning with desire. Of all the things that had gone through Andaris’ mind, suffocation hadn’t even been on the list. He held not a torch in the palm of his hand, nor a snake, but life and death.
“So anyway,” Gaven continued, “as embarrassed as I am to say it, our only chance is for you to make it out and bring back help.”
“Here,” Andaris offered. “Take my water. No telling how long I’ll be gone. You may need it.”
“That’s very generous,” Gaven said, “but what about you? What will you drink?”
“Don’t worry about me. When I get back to the entrance, I’ll have all the snow I can eat.”
Gaven nodded and took the skin. “That’s right, of course you will. Glad one of us is thinking.”
Andaris smiled at the compliment, rolled onto his back, leaned forward as though to touch his toes, curled into a ball, and then straightened out facing the opposite direction—all without singeing himself. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised. “If you need me, clang against the stone with something, like maybe the hilt of your sword. I bet the sound will travel all the way to the entrance.”
“Good idea,” Gaven admitted. “I’ll clang twice to check on you, and three times if I need something...though I can’t imagine what. You can answer by clanging twice if you’re still digging, three times if you’ve broken through, and four times if you’re coming back.”
Andaris nodded, then remembered that Gaven couldn’t see him and said, “Twice for status quo, three times if I...when I get out, and four times when I’m on my way back. Got it.”
“Good. Now keep your wits about you. I’m counting on you.”
Andaris reached out with his free hand and patted Gaven’s back. “I’ll work as fast as I can,” he said. “After I leave, it’s going to get really dark, maybe darker than you thought possible. Believe me…I know what I’m talking about. If your eyes start to play tricks on you, just remember, there’s no one else in here but us.”
“I’ll be fine,” Gaven insisted. “Didn’t I tell ya? I’ve got eyes like a bat. I love the dark. I sleep in it every night. In fact, the sooner you leave, the sooner I can get some shut-eye. All this crab crawling's got me plum worn out.
Good ole Gaven, Andaris thought. “All right, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he said, having the decorum not to remind the big man that bats were blind. “I’m going.”
Gaven chuckled and rolled onto his back.
Andaris shook his head and began to crawl away. “Knickers in a twist,” he whispered. “Maybe he is starting to rub off on me.”
Watching Andaris slowly make his way back up the incline, Gaven frowned. The darkness was deepening, becoming sinister and still, closing about him like a shroud. He grit his teeth, for contrary to his brave words, which he had uttered only for the sake of his friend, his heart was full of dread.
Gaven was an accomplished gambler. He’d spent many nights peering over the tops of cards in smoke-filled taverns, and most of the time won more than he lost, mainly because he knew when to raise and when to fold.
He figured their odds of getting out of here alive were about even, and that was being optimistic. If he could, he would fold and wait for a better hand. Even odds were all right when betting with coin, but not when it came to their lives. To die in battle was one thing. To die like this—like a rat in its hole—was something else altogether.
If we don’t get out of here, Trilla will be crushed, he thought. First Ashel and then us. And she won’t even know what happened. We’d just be a couple of skeletons down here, while she goes on with her life. You had to find the cave, didn’t you Gaven? You big dullard. The tents would have been better than this. Well, unless of course, we’d made camp beneath that avalanche.
Now all the big man could see of Andaris was the distant bobbing of the torch. Damn, he thought. He doesn’t deserve to die down here. Not like this…. Here we are, with our lives on the line, and all I can do is lie on my backside like a lump. He felt so helpless—was so helpless. A useless lump, he thought.
Soon the torch passed beyond sight and Gaven was plunged into a velvety black sea. His frown deepened. Don’t like this much, he decided. If something happens to him…how long would it take me to die? “Trapped and alone,” he whispered.
Feeling an uncomfortable tightening in his chest, he concentrated on taking slow, steady breaths. Is the air already beginning to thin? he wondered. No. Not yet...not for days yet. Just relax. Relax. Andaris had told them about his experience in the caverns. Until now, however, Gaven had not appreciated just how frightening it must have been for him. Dig fast, he thought.
By the time Andaris reached the entrance, his knees and elbows were covered with bruises. He leaned Gaven’s shoveltorch against the wall, took out his own Sokerran cavalry shovel, and began to dig. The snow was hard packed, almost like ice. This slowed things a bit, but he didn’t mind, for it also diminished the risk of a cave in. He threw each shovelful over his shoulder to the tunnel floor, where, thanks to the curious warmth of the stone, it soon began to melt. When the hole was deep enough, he crawled inside and started to dig up and out, trying not to think of the danger.
He was just beginning to get a good sweat going, when he heard a distant, “clang…clang.” He paused to listen. A few seconds passed and he heard it again, louder than before. Not wanting to make Gaven worry, he crawled from the snow tunnel into the rock tunnel and hit the handle of his shovel twice against the wall. Gaven answered, and then went silent. Just checking, Andaris decided.
Hours later, as he was coming out with yet another shovelful of snow, something very disquieting occurred to him. I’ve been digging in a straight line this whole time, he thought. The tunnel’s close to ten feet long. How far from the wall of the mountain to the edge of the road? It can’t be more than ten feet. Can it? What if it’s less? What if I broke through and there was nothing but open air in front of me. Or worse, what if I dug past where there was solid ground, to where there was just snow beneath? One minute I’d be moving right along, and then poof, just like that, the floor would give way.
Andaris shuddered and, with panic rising in his throat, crawled the rest of the way out. Once back in the other tunnel, he sat and closed his eyes, relishing the feel of stone beneath his body, trying to reign in his galloping heart.
When his head cleared, he opened his eyes, rubbed his face with his palms, and began mulling over his options. Could go five feet in and start digging to the right, he thought, which would be west. “Up and to the west,” he whispered. “Might take a while, but I’d have to break through eventually. Like father always said, sooner started sooner finished. Works not gonna get done by staring at it.” Smiling at his poor imitation of his father’s voice, Andaris took a deep breath and reentered the tunnel of snow.
He had only dug a few feet when he heard what sounded like three clangs, echoing to his ears with a marked sense of urgency. He planted the torch in the snow and struck the handle of his shovel twice against the wall. Gaven responded immediately with three distinct clangs. There was now no doubt—the big man needed him. Andaris signaled that he was on his way, put his shovel into his saddlebags, grabbed the torch, and began to crawl. I’m coming, he thought.
When he was about halfway there he stopped and, once again, struck his shovel four times against the stone, mainly to let Gaven know how he was progressing. There was a long silence followed by three very faint clangs, suggesting...what? Had Gaven grown so weak that he could now barely lift his sword? And if so, why had he
grown so weak? Was he ill? Was he injured? A finger of fear traced the length of Andaris’ spine, its chill touch making him tremble. Could it be they weren’t alone in here after all?
As he neared the end of the tunnel, he began to visualize what he might find. He tried to prepare himself for the worst, his mind’s eye filling with a number of very unpleasant possibilities. The reality, however, turned out to be more disturbing than anything he’d imagined, for neither Gaven nor his things were anywhere to be found. They had simply vanished, apparently into the ether, without leaving the slightest hint as to where they might have gone. There was no sign of struggle. No blood. No nothing. It was a mystery without clues, a puzzle without pieces.
Andaris stared in dumfounded silence, wholly undone by what he saw—or rather didn’t see. A person doesn’t just up and disappear, especially not one so large as Gaven. It was ridiculous. For a long time he stared, unmoving, glassy eyed, unable to accept what was happening. Am I dreaming? he wondered. Am I really back in the tunnel of snow, sleeping on the job? Or is there some magic at work here?
He was about to slap himself to find out when he heard it—three clangs from somewhere beyond the end of the tunnel, from...the other side. But how could there be another side? Unless…. Gooseflesh rose on his arms. “Gaven!” he yelled. “Can you hear me?”
“I’m in here!” came the muffled reply. “Lay your hands palm first against the stone. Don’t worry. You won’t be harmed. It’s amazing, Andaris. It really is.”
Flooded by relief, he started to do as Gaven instructed, and then hesitated. What would happen if he laid his hands palm first against the stone? Would he be transported through the rock somehow? Would it open like a door? How did he know the other side was better than this side? And even if it was, what guarantee did he have that he wouldn’t be taken somewhere else? What if this was another portal? Come to think of it, how could he even be sure the person giving him instructions was Gaven, and not some creature pretending to be Gaven? Whoever it was had called him by name, but what did that really prove? If it had been listening to them, it would have heard both their names.
The Eight Walls of Rogar: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Series! (The Lost Kingdoms of Laotswend Trilogy--Book One) Page 27
