by LJ Davies
"I think there's something down there!" Boltock suddenly shouted from below.
"Don't be stupid, that's the sea!" Risha responded.
"No, there's something there, I swear!" his muffled voice sounded again. "It's like an island!"
Ember's eyes tilted upwards as she interjected. "Well, does anyone else have any bright ideas!?"
I looked down trying to peer into the depths. Despite my best efforts, it was hopeless, whatever Boltock thought he could see was too far away for me to pinpoint.
If something is down there, I'm going to have to trust him. I looked at Risha, her eyes struggling to stay open.
"It's the only way!" I shouted, painfully admitting it to myself as much as her.
She glanced down, shivering so intensely it was a wonder the whole cliff didn't come crashing down.
"Okay... I... I trust you!" she called back.
I glanced up to the dark, windswept sky, closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, uncoiled my tail and released my grip.
Part III
Bound by Destiny.
Chapter 11
Unknowable Truth
Consciousness slowly flickered into existence, revealing dazed images of a dark world. In a great rush of awareness my memory returned, and my eyes shot open.
I couldn't make anything out in the darkness except the sound of restless ice creaking and echoing around me. I moved my head to find it almost frozen in place, and with some difficulty I managed to break the frost from my scales, eventually freeing my legs and wings. The frozen seal shattered completely when I finally staggered to my paws. I felt so cold, almost as though the blood had frozen in my veins.
I struggled to bring a shivering forepaw to my face as my thoughts began to clear. I recalled clinging to the ice with the others, before releasing my grip and dropping into the void.
The others? Where are they?
My blurred gaze was cast out over the frozen chasm, searching the void as far as the limited light would allow. A glimpse of something in the darkness forced my chilled limbs into motion. Each muscle ached, while the steady movement slowly relieved me of my numbness.
I noticed that the surface below my feet, while freezing cold, wasn't ice. It appeared to be a carpet of black sand squashing between my frozen toes.
Boltock was right, there is land down here.
It wasn’t long before I found myself peering down at Risha’s blue scales, encased in a layer of shiny frost. I brushed the ice away, nudging her with a forepaw. The light howl of the distant storm overhead was the only thing to respond, as I discovered her body was as cold as ice.
All I'd done in my efforts to save them was to prolong their lives for a few more seconds, leaving them to freeze to death in this unforgiving hole. Kneeling beside her, I was unable to feel or think, all my troublesome thoughts had gone. For the first time in ages, my mind was clear from all its torment and taunting. I was done, beaten and broken; I'd failed. I rested my head on the sand beside hers and slipped into a frozen stupor.
A sudden, unexpected movement woke me, and driven by a new-found hope I nudged her again. Another shift and a gentle cough sent a rush of relief and happiness to fill the emptiness that had consumed me.
"A–Are you okay?" The words stuttered from my trembling muzzle as I rubbed more frost from her scales.
Her eyes blinked back to reality; a weak fire of life flickering inside the sapphire gems as she looked at me.
"You still have nothing to hold me to," she coughed.
Really, after all this that's the first thing she thinks of!? Kneeling, I lifted her wing from beneath the ice’s frozen grip.
"Thanks," she replied, slowly breaking her head and the rest of her body free from the cold shell. "Where are the others?"
Her weak but urgent question prompted me to answer.
"I don't know. They can't be far." I felt her body drop as I uttered the words.
She struggled to her paws, and what remained of her frosty coat fell away. With all the urgency I could muster, I followed, slowly becoming more focused as we limped across the sand. Scattered blocks of ice barely visible through the void covered the otherwise barren floor. Each sat in a crater; obviously having fallen from the frozen fissure above. An occasional crashing chorus echoed the path of more descents through the emptiness.
Before I knew it, Risha was stumbling down a sandy bank towards what appeared to be another frozen body. In her rush, her weakened legs almost fell out from under her. I jumped forward to help, sliding down while trying not to slip. When I reached her, she was floundering, limbs quivering with the effort as she panted.
"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked.
"Yes, I'm fine, just make sure they're okay too," she gasped, pointing over to the other frosty forms.
The same frozen cocoons encased Boltock and Ember, seemingly in no better condition than Risha or I. Kneeling down beside them, she started the process of breaking them from their enforced hibernation. I helped brush off the frost while she elaborated on how dragons had a higher resistance to cold than other creatures, though it wasn’t recommended they push it too far. While she continued to tend her patients, my eyes became more acclimatised to the limited light, allowing me to take a closer look at our surroundings.
Peering out over the rift, I could see that the sand sloped downward until it sank into a pool of icy water. A sheer wall of gnarled and crumbling ice encased us on either side. The sound of the wind punctuated the painful echoes of its shifting, and the distant splashes signalled more falling ice.
The welcome sound of the others coming round was a warming contrast. I glanced back to see them waking from their frozen stasis, still alive and alert. Despite that, the pair shared our chilled inflictions, and Risha worked frantically to get them up and moving.
"I told you there was something down here," Boltock muttered through a fit of coughing.
"Yeah, well now we just have to find out where 'here' is," Ember added feebly.
I turned to stare up to the world above. I’d no idea where we were, though if I was to give it a name it would probably be the most empty, wretched, freezing hole in the world.
"We can't fly out, that's for sure," Risha declared, her eyes looking to the bleak sky. "Certainly not with him like that," she added, turning her eyes back to Boltock.
"None of us are in any state to fly, for that matter," she added, looking at Ember and I.
Despite the hopelessness summoned by her every word, I felt a spark of foreboding as her eyes passed over me. As much as I attempted to convince myself otherwise, she was right – there was no telling how deep we were. The only sign the outside world even existed was the storm’s distant howl.
I examined the walls for any weakness, my eyes finally coming to rest on a rough crack shrouded in shadows. It looked dark and uninviting, but wide enough to squeeze through. The sight sparked a glimmer of hope in my frozen body, a fire that quickly began to warm and reawaken my desire to move on.
There's hope of escape, if only a slight one? My heart started to fill with optimism.
Unsure of how to proceed I turned to the others while Risha helped them test their frozen limbs.
"What do we do now?" she asked, as Ember assured her she could recover by herself.
I nodded over at the gloomy fissure, my spine prickling with apprehension.
"I'll go look for a way out."
Despite her concerned look I wasn't about to give her time to argue.
"You need to stay and make sure everyone's okay, you're the only one who knows how." My head drooped a little before I added, "I got us here, I'll get us out."
She gave a weak nod, though her look was far from approving.
"Be careful."
"Don't worry, I think we're as far away from the ghauls as we can be." The positive idea helped reassure my concerns as I turned towards the crevice.
The fissure reached high into the wall of ice, its depths uninviting, cold and dark. I glanced back a
t the others, the sight reminding me of what I was fighting for. Swallowing my fear, I crept into the abyss.
Placing one hesitant, shivering paw in front of the other, I cautiously moved forward, each step leading me into what felt like a tomb. The claustrophobic walls stretched up high and quickly closed in, leaving barely enough space to move.
The dark confines of the frozen dungeon was no place for a creature that belonged in the sky. The walls forced me into tighter corridors as I worked my way through. Even the floor was now nothing more than ice, invisible within the darkness that now prevailed. My eyes tried to pierce the gloom, straining to catch glimpses of the walls, but all I could see was the smallest hint of the thin passageway sloping downward.
The faint groans of contorting ice and rupturing rock echoed around me and after what felt like miles of walking, the tiny funnel finally led me to an open pocket. No natural light reached it, and I stumbled, hardly able to see where I placed my paws. What I didn’t understand was why I could still see anything. Then I noticed a dim flicker, distorted by the translucent ice. Refusing to believe my eyes, the ghostly glow maintained its inviting glimmer.
The limited illumination it provided was enough to give me a glimpse of my frozen tomb, revealing several perfectly clear ice columns supporting the roof, like great trees frozen in time. The walls led off in all directions, hosting more of the cracked and broken passageways similar to the one that had delivered me here. All the while my eyes focused on the light, its hypnotic distraction making me completely oblivious to anything else.
Why would something like that appear in such a dark and unforgiving place?
Curiosity drove me beyond any thoughts of caution, but even as I felt a deep urge to rush back and tell the others, the allure drew me in like a moth. Until, without realising it, I found myself at the far end of the chamber peering into another narrow walkway.
What am I doing? I should go back, none of this is real, it's impossible! I told myself, but the light still beckoned.
When I tried to tear my eyes away, my desire to know more forced me on. I tried to convince myself that I was hallucinating or so hopelessly lost that I wanted to see anything other than darkness,
How long have I been following it? How much longer should I continue? Is this just becoming an even more hopeless situation? None of it can be real.
"Why!?"
My sudden outburst echoed through the chamber, as if shouting would allow my voice to transcend the boundaries of my icy prison.
Why me? Why now? Why here? What seemed to be the most important question right now was, why didn't I know? Why can't I believe? Is it fear, anger, or sheer desperation?
It was none of them.
All I'd ever wanted was to find the truth. All of my life I'd been content, but not truly satisfied. Yet when the moment of discovery finally thrust itself upon me, all I could do was reject it because it wasn't what I'd imagined.
If I want it so much, why do I keep refusing to believe? It may only have been an assumption, but it felt as though the answers could be along the narrow reaches of the corridor.
I looked up and locked on to the flickering beacon. The air fell still, the restless ice grew silent and the strange lack of any sight, smell or sound other than that of the light unnerved me. Then something new caught my attention, a soft, welcoming sound that echoed between the walls. It was weak but undoubtedly came from the same direction as the glow. I listened intently, I'd heard the sound before, I knew it – deep down inside I knew that sound, but that was impossible, the only place I'd heard it before was in my...
A sudden combination of shock, fear and curiosity surged into my mind, the latter-most immediately taking control and sending me in to a frantic dash down the tunnel. The sound grew louder as I came to a sliding halt at the entrance of a dimly lit chamber. The source of the light at its centre, a rhythmic hum accompanying its glow.
Impossible! It's the cavern from my dreams!
I'd been told repeatedly that dreams could never be real, whether it be the dread of nightmares or the longing for something more. They were things that could never come true and yet here I was, standing at the epicentre of my recurring nightmare. Never had I longed so much to wake from my mind’s torment, to trap my terror in the dazed seconds before suddenly waking.
But this is no nightmare.
I stared at the mystical blue light, the humming sound cutting off the surrounding world. Edging cautiously forward from the cover of the tunnel I placed a forepaw into the chamber.
Wait! my conscience screamed, and I retracted my eager foreleg.
This isn’t a dream or some impossible hallucination, think about what you dreamt.
I delved deeper into the depths of my fractured memory, salvaging everything I could recall. Amidst the broken images, repeated words and ghostly echoes came the distorted shards of my blurred recollections.
It always started this way. I’d find myself on the edge of the chamber, slowly walking towards the centre. Every time I reached it, something bad would happen, driving me into sudden consciousness. Only this time there was no waking up, no getting out. The thought made my stomach churn, leading me to one conclusion: I've no idea how to proceed.
Part of me wanted to turn back, to leave the impossible alone. My mind fought back: what if there’s no way out, no way to help the others?
Glancing back through the passageway I recalled the words I'd desperately uttered when clinging to the ice.
I called out to the supposed gods that sent me here. Maybe, just maybe, those words meant something?
It felt stupid to consider that they may have been heard. But if dreams could be real, then why not? All of it – the stories, legends, images, dreams, everything – all coalesced here. Like everything else on this unbelievable adventure, it wasn't how I'd imagined.
I picked myself up, nervously stepping forward. I needed answers, whether I believed them or not, and with a growing conviction, I continued my advance. The light remained constant and the humming became louder, just like in my dreams. With every step I considered running, but this was it, I couldn’t flee from the truth any longer.
My quivering paws crunched across a floor of frosted ice, cracking and splintering with each step like the surface of a dry riverbed. The air grew less hostile, less bitter, the cold and the darkness replaced by a feeling of incandescent warmth.
The blue glow grew brighter, reaching a blinding crescendo, forcing me to raise a wing over my straining eyes. Until, without warning, it failed, leaving a brief imprint on the back of my vision, plunging the chamber into darkness. I lowered my protective cover to see four hexagonal pillars emerge from the once overwhelming glow. Each one level with my eyes, formed from pure crystal and tipped with a fine point.
A subdued light emanated from the base, projecting through the clear rock. At the centre lay a flat crystalline surface, bathed in the light of the retained hue. Its beauty chased away all the horror, doubt and sadness, dismissing them to my mind’s darker reaches. I reached out and placed a forepaw upon them.
A sense of purity immediately rushed through me like a healing river growing into a warm torrent. I snatched my paw away, looking at what I thought would be scorched scales, but there was no such thing: for where my paw had touched the crystals, it now glowed. For a moment I thought it was a trick and I tried to shake it off, when that failed, I returned my eyes to the mystical sight. This time a ball of flickering blue light had appeared above the four pillars. I couldn't recall anything like this from my dreams, and the urge to run flashed repeatedly through my mind.
"You have returned at last," a spectral voice announced like an old friend.
I don't remember having any friends like this!
I was convinced that I would remember them, and even my dreams omitted this part. I spun round, my eyes scouring the gloom for its source, a difficult task as it seemed the words were spoken from within my mind.
"You have nothing to fear," the elusi
ve voice spoke again.
"Who said that?" I shouted as I looked back at the orb of illumination.
"That would be me," the voice replied, words invading my mind once more.
This time I caught a glimpse of something else. As the words were uttered, the light synchronised perfectly.
"Did you just? Did you just talk?" I asked hesitantly, jabbing a forepaw at the glow.
I'm talking to a light, really? This has got to be the most ridiculous thing so far!
"That is correct," the light replied, once again pulsing in union with its words.
Is this it? After all my searching, is this spectral voice going to give me the answers?
"W–Who... who are you?" I stuttered.
"I am Ethereal," the voice replied.
"Ethereal, that’s your name?" I asked, cocking my head.
"The concept of names has long been forgotten among us, but it is my name, if you so wish."
"Us? You mean there are more of you?" I asked, glancing around for more glowing orbs.
"In the beginning, we were five. That..." the voice raised its tone. "That is not what is important... not now."
I flinched at the peak in its words, pausing for a few moments before I dared ask my next question.
"What is important?"
The reply wasn’t what I expected.
"You. You have returned, and so the time is finally upon us."
All I could do was stare directly into the mesmerising glow as my mind began to crumble under the revelation.
That's just what everyone else has been saying!
"We have been trying to reach you for so very long. But shadows have clouded what we once were," the voice added.
"What, who... What do you mean? Who am I, what am I?" I spluttered, the words flooding out like a raging torrent.
I paused abruptly, silent and motionless as I awaited the truth.
"Patience, young one. I understand your desire for answers, all will be revealed in time."
The light’s reply simply reignited my enthusiasm. I wasn't just going to let it stop there, not after all I'd been through. I needed something more, and I needed it now.
