Ruins of Scell: Prequel to The Secret Depths Trilogy

by Raymond Cain

  Chapter 3

  Flynn’s sense of duty—a mental faculty he often tried to suppress—gnawed at him. “I really should inform the City Guard about the cave,” he said wistfully, admiring the way light reflected off the jewels’ facets.

  “But a quick peek couldn’t hurt,” Flynn said, and the crystals in his swimming boots flared as he swam for the opening. The air pocket over the open-faced helm did not block out the stench of stale water, likely the result of the cave being sealed off for many years. Inside, the tunnel was pitch black, indicating an absence of luminescent organisms dwelling within. A gulper eel followed him in, and the glowing white stripe along its spine provided Flynn with enough light to see the walls. He let out a deep, nervous breath, releasing a stream of bubbles that formed a puddle of air on the ceiling, and went deeper inside.

  Carven images lined in gold portrayed the scells’ way of life. The images depicted underground cities located near sources of molten rock. According to the pictures, the scells could harness lava in a manner reminiscent of the way humans manipulated water. Underground farms were lit and heated by floating streams of molten rock, and tended by lava golems. Their city contained a loop of lava with floating rocks on it that transported people in a manner eerily similar to the Waterway, a loop of water in Seahaven that carried people on chunks of ice. It seemed that scells and humans had much in common.

  The images made Flynn’s heart leap in anticipation. Did he just find the entrance to an ancient scell city? He eagerly studied the engravings until the cave grew dark. The gulper eel used its whiplike tail to propel itself further up the tunnel, and he hurried to catch up to it.

  The tunnel led to a square, air-filled chamber. Four large urns were spaced around the room, one in each corner, and they were filled to the brim with lava. The molten rock lit up the room, and it was only a few moments before Flynn was wiping sweat from his brow and loosening the collar on his kempcloth shirt. It was too hot to wear his breathing helm, and he set it down by the opening.

  Positioned between two of the urns was a scell statue, seated cross-legged with four outstretched hands. Its bald head was humanlike, save for two narrow slits that replaced its nose. Each hand held a stone bowl containing different elements. Flames roared from the first bowl, air swirled in the second, water churned in the third, and the last one contained dirt. The statue was attached to an enormous stone door set into the wall, and clearly the stone figure was somehow the key to opening it.

  Flynn paced around the room, contemplating the possible meaning behind the statue and the four elements it held. After pausing at the pool to scoop water on his reddening face, he returned to the statue and inspected it more closely. He had assumed it was a solid piece of stone, but its arms were levers, fitted to the statue’s body on swivel joints. He reasoned that pulling the arms down in a certain sequence would open the door, but there was no way to know what that sequence was. Scanning the room one more time yielded no clues, until he took a closer look at the statue’s back.

  There were tiny words carved along the statue’s spine. The inscription appeared to be a single message, written in many different languages. Fortunately, one of the languages was human. The words read:

  The path will be revealed when the levers are pressed in their order of importance.

  It was a simple message, but it left Flynn perplexed. His eyes passed from the flame-filled bowl to the air-filled bowl, and then to the earth and water bowls. If it were a human-made statue, the most important element would likely be water. Their civilization was largely centered on water, and yet, without air, they would not be able to survive. And without earth, what would water rest upon? Without fire, or by extension, heat, everyone would freeze. Each element was vital.

  Flynn reminded himself to avoid looking at the puzzle from a human perspective. Scells built the statue, and the lava-filled urns suggested a culture largely centered around fire. Presuming the arm holding the flame-filled bowl was the first of the sequence, that would only leave him with three levers. There would only be a handful of combinations to choose from.

  After wiping fresh beads of sweat off his forehead and releasing a nervous breath, Flynn stared intently at the stone hand supporting the flame-filled bowl. He grabbed the arm by the wrist and pulled it down. The high-pitched squeal of metal rubbing against metal sliced through the air, but, to his surprise, the arm swung down easily.

  The arm snapped back to its original position, and Flynn’s shoulders leapt at the sound of breaking stone. One of the urns shattered, and the lava within poured out in a widening pool. Steam rose from his inkskin boots and he stepped back, far out of the lava’s reach.

  Flynn wondered what would happen if he guessed wrong and, looking at the urns still standing, he felt certain he had his answer. If he guessed wrong three more times, the entire floor would be covered in molten rock. Considering that incorrectly using the flame lever resulted in a fiery threat, he wondered if guessing wrong with the other elements would result in hazards relative to what was in their bowls.

  His thoughts were interrupted when the puddle stopped spreading and started retreating. A bulge formed in the center of the lava and rose until it was as tall as Flynn. A fiery being took shape, absorbing all the lava until the puddle disappeared. It was a humanoid-shaped figure, with four arms and two legs. It appeared to be a construct, much like the water golems so common in Seahaven. It regarded its arms as though confused by them, and Flynn’s guts churned as he waited to see what it would do next.

  The lava golem stepped forward, leaving behind fiery footsteps that smoldered on the stone floor. Bits of molten rock dripped from its arms and sizzled as they splatted on the flagstones. It waved its arms menacingly, and Flynn drew his sword. He shuddered at the thought of what would happen to him if he was struck by one of those fiery limbs. The golem stepped between Flynn and the pool, revealing that it was smart enough to prevent him from escaping.

  Some of the lava in the golem’s body surged into one of its arms, doubling its size. The swollen arm elongated, launching a fiery fist toward Flynn’s face. He sidestepped out of its way and the appendage missed by so narrow a margin, it singed his skin. Tufts of his chestnut-brown locks crackled from the heat, and curls of floating, burnt hair saturated the air with a sulfur-like smell.

  Flynn sliced his sword through the arm, sending it splashing to the floor. A few droplets struck his kempcloth pants, eating holes through the durable fabric and causing painful burns on his calves, but he ignored the pain. He waded forward and thrust his sword into the lava golem’s belly, sending more droplets to the floor when the tip of the blade burst out from its back. The steel became red hot where it touched the molten rock, and his skin sizzled on the hilt.

  Flynn released his sword, shaking his hand in a futile effort to cool his skin. The sword remained stuck in the golem, and it began to bend. Both ends of the weapon sagged, and before long, it separated into two red-hot pieces at the construct’s feet. The golem looked up at Flynn with blazing eyes and shook its head side-to-side as if to say you-shouldn’t-have-done-that.

  Another surge of lava from the golem’s torso swelled two of its arms, and Flynn readied himself for the attack. As both arms shot toward him, he ducked into a forward roll that brought him behind and beside the construct. He considered diving into the pool and escaping, but behaving reasonably was not in his nature. He paused at the edge and faced his opponent instead. No lava golem was going to stop him from exploring further.

  The golem’s fiery brow narrowed and it lowered its stance. It shrunk its upper body and doubled the size of its legs. The construct leapt, its augmented legs providing it with enough momentum to carry it halfway across the room. It reached out at Flynn with four fiery arms, but he dove out of the way. The golem splashed into the pool, immediately filling the room with steam. Through the mist, Flynn was surprised to see the golem’s exterior turn glassy as it cooled. It flailed for only a moment before it became encased in a hard, da
rk outer shell that sank into the water.

  Invigorated by the victory, Flynn considered what to do next. The first correct lever in the sequence was clearly not the one carrying the flame-filled bowl. He tried to gauge the importance of the other levers by how devastating it would be to living beings if the element did not exist. The more he thought about it, the more he believed the elements were of equal worth. The idea of arranging them in order of importance made no sense.

  The answer slammed into Flynn like a tidal wave. He pulled down all four of the statue’s outstretched arms at once. At first, nothing happened, and he wondered if he would be set upon by four golems as deadly as the one he’d just faced. The remaining three lava-filled urns did not shatter and he nervously scanned the walls, floor, and ceiling for threats.

  Instead, the whir of gears and the grinding of stone against stone warned Flynn that something was happening beneath the statue. The sculpture rotated and a stone wall slid away behind it, revealing a hallway into the mountain.

  Chapter 4

  Flynn retrieved what was left of his sword. After letting it cool for a few minutes, he tentatively picked it up and slid it into his scabbard. Half a sword was better than none.

  A trail of lava, magically suspended along the ceiling, lit the hallway. Unlit torches rested in sconces spaced along the walls at regular intervals. In the distance, there was a set of stairs ascending to an upper level, and Flynn couldn’t be more excited to see where they led.

  The magic adhering the lava to the ceiling also made it flow. Crystals, bubbles, and volcanic glass swirled beneath the molten surface, and it reminded Flynn of the way his own people manipulated water. Enchanted water often flowed along ceilings in Seahaven, and he wondered if his people got the idea from the scell, or if it was the other way around.

  The air was warm and stale, and it felt rough on Flynn’s throat. The hallway was a beautifully-fitted assembly of five-sided black flagstones that were polished to a smooth finish. There was a slight incline, and Flynn wondered why the hallway was sloped. Perhaps the ground shifted over time.

  Flynn proceeded toward the stairs and discovered a stone door set into the wall near their base. He turned a round stone latch on the right-hand side, and it broke off in his hand. He nudged the door but it was firmly locked in its doorjamb. It seemed unlikely that he would be able to kick open the stone door, so he chose to ascend the stairs instead.

  The lines of lava along the ceiling stopped at the end of the hall, and the stairs were shrouded in darkness. Flynn nervously walked up the first few steps and felt something crunch under his boots. He whispered a command word into the crystal ring he wore, and it flared with pale blue light. The stairs were filled with cobwebs, and countless spiders crawled along the walls, floor, and ceiling. The arachnids were the size of fingertips and had mandibles longer than their bodies. The critters seemed to take advantage of the absence of lava on the ceiling; the stairs were so dense with webs that he could not see through them.

  Flynn returned to the hallway and removed a torch from one of the sconces. He pressed one end into the lava along the ceiling and it flared to life, permeating the air with the stench of burning, moldy wood. Proud of himself for arriving at a solution so quickly, he returned to the stairs and poked the torch into the webs. Sparks crackled along the strands, and wisps of smoke crawled along the ceiling. In time, the sparks grew into flames, and thousands of spiders scattered from the inferno. Never had Flynn seen spiders move so quickly. They scurried up his boots and dropped down on him from above. He backed down the stairs, brushing them off his trousers and pulling them out of his hair. Spiders crawled down his spine, and he reached frantically under his clothing to remove them.

  The sound of stone thudding against stone echoed through the hall. It emanated from the top of the stairs, but with all the webs and smoke in the way, Flynn could not see what caused it. A second thud rang through the tunnel, and a third. Through the smoke, he caught a glimpse of a large, shadowy image within the webs, and he backed away.

  A massive boulder, large enough to fill the hallway, rolled down the stairs. It rolled shockingly fast down the steps, and Flynn’s eyes bulged like a puffer fish’s. The entrance was too far away for him to reach, and he realized why the tunnel was built with a slope. Knowing he wouldn’t make it to the entrance before getting crushed, he gave the stone door a try instead.

  Flynn put all his weight and strength into kicking in the door. Expecting the desperate move to fail, he was shocked when his foot smashed through the stone. The door was hollow and covered in thin stone plates that shattered on impact. After his foot went through, something tightened around his ankle.

  A snare yanked Flynn into the room, pulling him out of the way of the boulder as it rolled down the hallway. A stone counterweight at the far side of the room dropped down, yanking him into the center of the room through a loop in the middle of the ceiling. He dangled from a rope, and his foot immediately started throbbing. He swung like a pendulum, coming to a stop over a ten-foot wide pit filled with lava. The heat was unbearable, like a blacksmith’s forge with the door open.

  Fortunately, Flynn’s scabbard hung upside down, and his half-sword remained within. He unsheathed the weapon and frowned at the partially-melted blade. Escaping his predicament would have been much easier with a full-length sword. The pain in his foot was unbearable, and he would have to find a solution soon or lose function in the extremity permanently.

  With sword in hand, Flynn bent at the waist and swung himself forward. Like a pendulum, he swung back and forth over the lava pit, and even the brief moments where he was not directly over the pit were a welcome reprieve from the heat. As he gathered momentum, he bent his knees and slashed at the rope with the half-sword. The kelp strands frayed where he cut it, and he could feel the rope weakening. He swung over the pit as more strands snapped, lowering himself closer to the lava.

  Gathering his strength for another chance to sever the rope, Flynn pitched himself as hard as he could for one powerful upswing. As his swinging arc carried him past the pit and over the floor, he slashed with the blade, but the rope snapped before he could reach it. His momentum carried him across the room, and he landed heavily on the floor. His sword went flying, clattering on the flagstones a few steps away.

  Flynn’s hip and back were sore from the fall, but his foot ached terribly. The severed rope remained cinched tight around his ankle, and he was unable to get his fingers around it to remove it. He crawled to his sword and sawed away at the fibers, ignoring the pain as he inadvertently cut into his boot and the skin beneath. In a moment of triumph, the rope gave way, and a final surge of pain swept through him as all the pressure in the extremity was released. For many moments, he lay in agony.

  With a groan, Flynn got back up to his feet. Outside the room, there was no sign of the boulder—presumably, it rolled into the entrance chamber—and he headed for the stairs. His back ached with every step, and the air was thick with smoke. Many of the fleeing spiders returned to the burnt, tattered remains of their home. Only wisps of webs remained, and their absence provided a clear path to the top of the stairs. Each stair made him wince, and he let out a deep breath of relief once he reached the top.

  The staircase led into a map room. The floor was carved into a perfect likeness of the ocean floor. The hills and valleys replicated the terrain that Flynn cruised over on a daily basis, and the Dragon’s Teeth mountains thrusted into the ceiling like stalagmites. The map represented an area dozens of miles wide, an expanse that far outstripped the range of any map he’d seen. He traced his finger through thick dust that covered one of the peaks, looking for Seahaven. Where the domed city should have been, there was a wide depression instead.

  “Wow,” Flynn said, tracing lines in the dust in the bowl-shaped cavity. “This room was created before Seahaven was.”

  A trail of tiny scell figurines spanned from one side of the room to the other. At the beginning of the trail, cracks in the ocean f
loor surrounded a ruined city. At the end of the trail there was a scell city next to a large underwater volcano. Tall columns and majestic structures dotted the slopes, and dozens of tiny scell statues occupied the buildings. The location he was in was roughly halfway between the two cities.

  “I get it now,” Flynn said to himself, studying the trail. “After their city was devastated by an earthquake, they made a new one. They built this place as a refuge for lost scell who didn’t know where to go after their home was destroyed.”

  Flynn was so focused on the floor that he failed to notice a stone door until he was right next to it. Inscribed into the rock was a short message written in many different languages.

  “Go no further,” Flynn said, reading aloud.

  Burning with curiosity about what lay beyond the door, Flynn knew the importance of heeding the warning. Naturally, he suppressed it.

  Who could resist opening a door after being told not to? It would be foolish to go inside after all the traps Flynn encountered, but perhaps a peek would be okay.

  “No harm in looking,” Flynn said as he slowly pushed open the door.

  Chapter 5

  The door opened into a long hallway. A four-armed statue of a seated figure perched at the end of the hall, and stone masks resembling scell faces dominated the walls. Flynn thought the statue was identical to the one in the entrance until its head rotated, revealing a humanlike face. A moment later, it spun again, displaying a mermaid face. After the next rotation, the cycle repeated itself, displaying the scell face.