by Dekker, Ted
"How's your head?"
"Trapped in a shaking rain stick."
Their only company was snakes and lizards and the occasional vulture. And Shaedas thoughts, mingling with his own.
The canyon not only narrowed, but rose up and dropped off into a second, much larger round depression that looked like an emptied lakebed. The rocks in the bottom looked like moss-eaten headstones, a sunken, flooded graveyard.
Would they be able to read the names?
"Some of them, my Johnis. "
Johnis mopped sweat from his forehead and neck and resisted the urge to guzzle his water bottle or pour it on his head. It had to last.
His mind could focus on three things: Silvie's voice. Shaeda's voice. The Horde.
Otherwise it meandered where it willed.
Resolve. He needed resolve. And he needed clarity.
Shaedas will brought him both. She'd promised him power, power he hadn't tapped into.
Blood always brought power. And the books.
Shaedas prompting gaze directed his mind to something in his bag. Something he'd carried and forgotten.
`Remember your vows .. .
She wanted him to help conquer the Horde.
Silvie wanted to kill the Horde.
Johnis's will was tearing in two.
He kicked mentally against Shaedas stronghold. Her eyes overpowered his vision, swallowing him in her multicolored irises.
Silvie had a vow too. And her vow could be his vow.
"Do you remember your oath, Silvie?"
She smiled deviously. "Which one, my love?"
Johnis pulled out the Book of History. He'd almost forgotten it until now. He set it between them.
"Let's make an oath, Silvie, before we go down and get this medallion." He touched her hand. Her skin was hot.
"Let's vow to conquer the Horde."
She hesitated. "Johnis ..."
"That is your vow. I just want to make it with you. I have to. It's the only vow that gets Shaeda out of my head. I can't be free of her, Silvie. Not without you."
Pause.
"All right."
They placed their hands over the book, then vowed. Nothing happened, as expected. No blood.
And it was done. They stood.
"We should continue down," Silvie said. "I don't want to be caught out here."
He started down the sloping fall with her. They fumbled and slid, tripped and swore, but finally reached the muddy lakebed. Mud but no water. And the mud was thick and brackish.
Unmoving.
"Invisible lake," Johnis muttered, half to Silvie, half to himself. He turned, looking for an entrance to the underground lair. He knew, because Shaeda knew. Her hold was growing. She became more dominant with each moment.
And she whispered in his ear again. His mouth spoke her words.
"Silvie, once we get the amulet, we can't let Warryn and his throaters have it. They'll take it and kill us."
"Likely. But like you said, it's a box canyon. We can't get out."
"The Shataiki can."
"And kill us too."
"Not necessarily. They don't like fire. And the healing water-"
"What healing water?"
"Water is water. And ... I think ... I think maybe Shaeda will help us."
"It's about time."
Shaeda led him along, though there was always a lapse between what his mind saw and what his eyes beheld.
But she kept them on track.
At the south end of the canyon the walls formed a kind of orb with a roundish hole carved out-an oval-shaped doorway with no corners. A six-foot overhang draped the entrance.
"Enter, Mighty Chosen One ... "
"Silvie, I think ... I think this could be it."
He started into the cave. Immediately the air became muggy and dense. Water dripped from somewhere deep within and echoed. Johnis marched on.
Silvie lit a torch and followed. They hadn't gone more than twenty feet when it snuffed out. Johnis turned.
"I don't know what happened," Silvie said to his unspoken question.
She tried lighting the torch again.
Nothing.
"This isn't normal, Johnis. I'm doing this right."
He barely heard her, compelled within.
"Johnis, something's wrong."
The shaft of light grew thinner and smaller, subdued by the bleak cave's gloom. Johnis could no longer see.
"Trust me, Johnis ... Yield to me. . . "
He put his left palm against the wall and felt a familiar, slimy goo. He sniffed.
"Worm sludge."
The kind produced by Shataiki larvae.
Johnis grimaced. "I hate this stuff."
Silvie slid her hand into his. "How do we see to find anything?"
Johnis wiped his hand on his pant leg. "Just keep moving straight. Don't stop; don't turn right or left." He squeezed her hand. "We'll find it."
"We can't see, Johnis."
"Shaeda can, Silvie."
"The tart. Entity."
"We didn't come this far to get lost in a cave. We didn't."
Now if only he could feel as brave as he hoped he sounded.
Deeper into the tunnel they went, clammy, shaking hands clasped. Much time passed, lost deep within this unsettling blackness.
Shaedas eyes proved to be their guiding light.
So did her hearing.
Soft squeaking sounds echoed off the cave walls and bounced around. Soon Johnis lost his sense of direction. Although there wasn't much direction other than forward and down.
The Leedhan's sense of smell was just as good as her hearing.
"You hear that?" Johnis asked.
"Dripping water."
"Bats. They're sleeping. Silvie . . . Silvie, there are probably millions of them. An eclipse of black bats."
Unease overtook him. The bats made Shaeda nervous.
Very nervous ...
Derias was close. Whoever he was, he'd earned the fear and hate of Shaeda the Leedhan. And she would not suffer him much longer.
Shataiki surrounded him. Ordinary, small ones. Larger ones. The queen, one of those second only to Teeleh himself, who laid the larvae that spawned more of the beasts, was close.
Derias.
He had an enormous hive. And hated albinos even more than Shaeda did.
Shaeda withdrew her thoughts.
Concentrate.
"Think about it. How many does it take to blot out the sun?"
"Just remember this was your idea."
The air grew chilly. Long, unseen tentacles like icy fingers traced down Johnis's neck and spine. He could feel the hair on his neck and arms and legs stand straight up. Worse, a strange, sickly sweet smell tinged the air. More shivers through his raw, tormented nerves. He could taste the salt on his upper lip. The stiffness in his joints worsened. His skin flaked in chunks the size of maple leaves.
A red haze drifted up from the ground, curling around their legs and rising along their waists.
"Follow the light ... "
Just enough to see by, winding around their cold bodies. Beckoning them to follow.
The walls and floor glistened with a thick layer of sludge.
Johnis drew a sharp breath and stared behind him down the tunnel, which had opened into a chamber where they now stood.
Four unlit torch stands surrounded the room like compass points. Or maybe they were lit. Maybe the red haze originated from these torches.
No...
"Silvie?" He wasn't sure why he was whispering. "Do you see the light?"
"I can't see anything."
Shaeda. Her eyes.
The walls within the cavern, from top to bottom, were made of some sort of black stone and covered in a greenish moss. Beneath their feet was a red-stained reed mat that was round and covered the entire floor.
In the center of the room was a four-foot stand made of ornately carved wood with a ram's horn on each corner and a hollowed-out top with a silver bowl insid
e. Nearby was a small silver gong and mallet.
The reddish mist grew up around the table but strayed from the gong. Shaeda was showing him something.
"I've never seen one like this before."
"We usually only see the library."
"Proceed, my johnis ... Brace yourself for my power ... Fear not. . .
He looked.
Just beyond them the cavern split into five openings, none more than four feet wide and six feet tall. Over each writhed the figure of a winged serpent with brilliant purple eyes that glittered in the unnatural light.
"Which way do we go?" Silvie whispered.
The serpents over the doors almost looked alive.
One actually flicked its tongue at him, scaly wings twitching.
"Hasten your steps ...
"More importantly, how long do you think it's been?"
Silvie didn't respond.
Johnis squeezed Silvie's hand and let go, then went to the silver bowl. He tried hard not to dwell on the throngs of slumbering, drugged bats. Nothing he was looking for.
"Choose wisely, my pet ... Take the road farthest left. "
A short tunnel brought him into a small room. He stepped inside.
More mist curling into his nostrils. More disturbingly sweet aroma.
Inside, the mist accumulated into a hearth. A heatless fire flickered over a metal grate. No logs. Two inches of ash filled the wall-length, low fireplace.
Atop a table stood a single golden pillar candle and two goblets, one containing water, the other a thick, red liquid. Too thick for wine.
Blood.
What in the world went on down here?
"Have no fear, my johnis. Such is not intended for you. "
Shaeda's assertion failed to soothe his unease. Equally unnerving was understanding that she concealed from him her knowledge of the chamber.
Her eyes drew him around the room. In the middle stood an altar made of the same wood as that in the main chamber but shaped like an enormous oval, horns on either end. Incense rose from the fire. The altar was empty. But completely soaked in blood.
A twelve-inch wooden knife with a painted hilt lay in the center. The blade was sharpened to a point. The edge could cut silk.
Johnis backed away. He bumped into the table in effort to get out of the room.
"De-dead end."
Something smacked into him. Johnis yelped and heard Silvie yelp with him, her knife at his throat.
They stared at each other, unmoving. Silvie's dull eyes looked like clouds reflecting moonlight on a dark evening.
She let him go.
"These two are sealed off, but I can hear scratching if I press my ear to it. The fourth is a library, but it looks as if someone stole everything out of it. The shelves are empty. The desk has only parchment and quills."
Johnis told her about the altar room.
"I want out of here."
"You're sure nothing was in the library?"
She nodded.
"It's usually the library. But I guess that makes sense. Why hide something where we would think to go first?" He headed for the cavern on the far right, Silvie in tow. He rubbed her hand with his thumb.
"It can't be much farther. If it isn't here, we'll have to break in-"
The ground gave way to open air beneath Johnis's feet.
He fell into an abyss and struck something hard. Silvie screamed after him.
All went black.
"STAND DOWN," CASSAK WARNED, APPROACHING THE throaters and Eramite captives at the canyon mouth slowly. He didn't look for his men. They would be in position.
No one was to make a move but by his word.
"Cassak," Warryn growled.
He and his men had taken positions along the canyon, too, but they had chosen too close to the edge and were now trapped. Perhaps Sucrow would have expected Marak's captain to follow.
His chief serpent warrior hadn't. These men were torturers, not warriors. They were lesser beings.
Two Eramites had gotten captured, and Warryn grew bored.
Now one rebel was dead, and the other one was probably wishing for death.
"I did nothing," Warryn protested. "They provoked me."
"Let them have their dead. We don't want a fight. Not now."
"You wish to know where their leader is, do you not?"
Cassak swore. He glanced at the rebel on the ground. "Take the body and go. This was not the doing of Marak of Southern."
But Warryn didn't release the tortured man.
"What are you going to do about it?" Warryn taunted. "Run back to your limp-wrist general and cry like a girl?"
He drew his sword.
"You'll lose that fight."
The captain bit back the desire to run this priest's jackal through.
"I said let them go, Throater. Your priest would not tolerate this insubordination. I don't care who's in command. You're dead."
An arrow fired down over Cassak's head. A warning shot.
Cassak held up his hand and swept the dunes for the archer.
"Come down!" he called. "This is not a war party!"
The rebel prisoner swore and coughed. "Could have fooled me."
Cassak scowled. "There's been a mistake," he called. "Hold your-"
A wave of Eramites crashed over the dunes, blades flashing in the sun.
Cassak drew his weapon.
"Take them alive," he ordered.
frantic Silvie knelt over Johnis, shaking him. He covered his face with his hands and pulled away, sat up. Sore and bruised all over, he could feel a headache coming on.
Concussion?
"I'm awake! I'm awake!"
The shaking stopped.
Johnis stood, feeling his body for any injuries.
A wet spot oozed at the back of his head. He stared at his bloody hand for a minute, made stranger by the mist that still clung to the air.
"Are you all right?"
They'd fallen about ten feet into a shaft that narrowed as it spiraled down and out of sight, dim save for the never-ending vapor.
How had he survived the fall? Shaeda's gentle laugh answered.
So he couldn't die unless she wished, either. The gift of life. Or death.
Perception ...
Shaeda's eyes commanded his attention. Johnis took in his surroundings. Now they were on a small landing that gave way to a descending staircase. High above, even beyond the entrance they had walked into, were torn pulleys and shredded cords.
"You broke my fall." Silvie pointed to his skinned legs, bleeding at the knees and shins, and matching arms. "We fell down a lift." She tore off part of his tunic and wiped blood off his skin.
"How long have we been out?"
"I didn't pass out. Only a minute or two."
"We have to hurry."
The stair treads were narrow and close together. Johnis tested his weight.
It might hold him after all.
The passage shrank the farther he went. He started counting steps.
By fifty he was tired and cold.
By 136, he and Silvie were both getting winded.
Worse, the stairwell not only shrank in width, but in height, until Johnis was bent into a crouch just to fit.
Soon Silvie, too, slouched her way along, hand on the wall.
No railing, just slippery little steps and a rising sense of claustrophobia.
"Maybe you were right," he finally admitted.
"Should have listened."
Shaedas claws twisted at him. Johnis stifled a cry.
The mission. Retrieve the medallion. Return to do the ceremony with Sucrow. Then kill him.
Shaedas light chuckle. "You learn quickly, my pet ...
He had to get rid of the Leedhan, this entity. But her commanding eyes pulled him along. Like a dog on a leash.
The end of the staircase was so small, its ceiling so low, that they both ended up on hands and knees, crawling face first in sludge.
They reached the bottom. A metal
grate blocked their exit. Johnis took his knife and pried at it. The metal gave, and he crawled through into an open room.
No red haze.
He blinked in the unexpected torchlight while his eyes adjusted.
Shaedas sixth sense spiked. Her sudden terror gripped him.
Slumbering black bats lined the entire room, dangling upside down, licking up worm sludge from larvae crawling along the walls. The long, thin worms shrieked occasionally. Copper filled his mouth. Johnis licked his lips.
Shaeda directed his eyes.
Near the far wall smoke and flames curled from a bowl-shaped stand. Silvie crawled through and walked past him into the room.
Leathery wings rustled overhead.
More dark stone walls and slimy, moss-covered rock. An empty hearth. A wooden altar with an open book across it.
Atop the book lay something round with a leather string dangling off one side.
Silvie hurried to him to look at it as well. She snatched up the torch.
The medallion was the size of his hand, of a reddish wood he'd never seen before, the kind described only in tales of the legendary Colored Forest. A ring was painted on it, and a setting made of slate with a gold center, almost like an eye.
"This is it, Silvie. This is really it."
His hand closed around the medallion.
Silvie thrust the torch like a club. Her eyes were wide and round, staring past his shoulders. "Back!"
He turned. Then backed up into her.
Before them stood an oversized, mangy, black-furred bat, easily nine feet tall, with beady red eyes and long claws. A fly buzzed around its ear. The lips parted in a wicked grin.
Shataiki.
The Shataiki queen.
Derias.
Shaeda's teeth bared. A ruse. She was only half-Shataiki. The other half was abhorrently human.
Silvie raised the torch over the book. "Stay back," she warned the Shataiki.
The room was filled with the beasts.
"I knew there was a catch," Silvie snarled.
"Well, what is this, breaking into my home?" Derias sneered as he eyed the medallion. "I would suggest you return that if you are to leave in the same condition in which you came." He outstretched a claw.
Razor-sharp, purple vision honed in on the bat.
Shaedas instinct was to run. Copper and salt flooded his mouth. Johnis half lunged.
Wait!
"Not so fast. You can't use it. I can."
