Chapter 33
Liselle gulped a deep, shuddering breath. She opened her eyes and tried to stand, but was only able to make it to her hands and knees. She stayed there, gasping desperately for air. The ring on her finger was hot and still shined brightly.
When Liselle died, the ring pulled her soul inside one of the rubies while it destroyed the creature that killed her. Then the ruby melted, releasing her. The substance of the ruby traveled throughout her blood to heal the wounds, leaving her whole once more.
Her heart hurt. It had stopped when she died and then started again once the ring was done with its work. Her lungs had stopped breathing and needed air badly. Liselle buried her head in her arms and cried between gulps of air. She cried because of what had happened to her. Terror and pain had owned her for a while. She cried because she had died and it hurt. She cried because she was in this awful place and didn’t know how to get out. Mostly she cried because she was still scared and wanted Vevin to come rescue her.
After a few minutes, the crying subsided. Liselle remained on her knees, with head buried in her arms. She became still, listening for a moment. The room was quiet, but she heard skittering noises from beyond the entrance.
Slowly, she stood and looked around. The only light was from the gradually dimming glow of the ring. A sharp, clean smell had replaced the acrid odors of Krraa’s torture chamber. Liselle stretched her arms out carefully. They were sore like the rest of her body, but it wasn’t as bad as she had expected. The wound on her inner arm was gone. She felt her cheek and discovered that cut had disappeared too.
Liselle attempted to cast a small light. She smiled in relief as the blue orb appeared. The light showed that all of the torture devices were gone, as was everything else in the room including the table. The rock walls were smooth and shiny, scoured clean by the ring.
Liselle wore sturdy slippers, which muffled her footsteps as she moved toward the entry to inspect the skittering sounds. She reached the entry and directed the light out a bit. Her worst fears were realized.
Sstejj milled by a stream where water murmured past. The scent of water mixed with the slimy stench of the monsters. It was a dark cave half as large as Garrrn Cavern. A few patches of phosphorescent moss gave off the only other light. Liselle stood still while letting her orb travel to the top of the cave. The sstejj didn’t have eyes, so she wasn’t worried about them seeing it.
Two tunnels led from the cave. Liselle had no clue which one would lead back to Garrrn Cavern, nor did she have any idea where in the depths of Ryallon she might be. She wondered why the sstejj hadn’t caught her scent or felt the vibrations of her steps.
Liselle began moving toward the closest tunnel, hugging the wall of the cave. Reaching halfway, she noticed runes etched into the cave floor in a semi-arch. The sstejj did not cross the runes, which concerned her. After she took a few paces on the other side, the closest sstejj smelled the air with its gills. Liselle froze, watching it. The creature began moving toward her, sniffing the air as it came. Upon reaching her, it took an experimental bite.
Liselle ducked out of the way of its teeth, retreating behind the runes. The creature sniffed the air again before losing interest and walking away. She was sure that if she had been Rojuun, all of the creatures would have converged to feast upon her without hesitation.
There had to be a way to distract them. They were milling around as though waiting for someone to give them orders. Liselle didn’t know them to eat anything other than Rojuun, though she was certain they would try to eat her given the opportunity. Thinking back, she remembered that the creatures were cannibals who would eat each other when one fell.
Perhaps if she were to kill one, the others would set upon it. It felt like a mean thing to do, but they were terrible creatures and she didn’t want them to eat her. Liselle thought about it for a moment then gathered her concentration.
A small dagger of fire formed between her hands. Liselle hoped it would pierce the disgusting flesh of one of the creatures and kill it. The dagger was only as long as a finger, but it burned brightly. She looked for a sstejj in the middle of the pack. With a flick of her wrists, she sent the fiery dagger flying through the cave.
The sstejj screamed as the dagger ripped into it and started burning. The monster collapsed to the ground in death throes. Other sstejj felt it fall and converged on it. Liselle nearly threw up in disgust as she watched them devour it. The tunnel wasn’t as close as Liselle would have liked and she didn’t know if they would all stay busy, so she made two more of the daggers and shot them into other sstejj further away. When the rest of the sstejj converged to rip their brethren apart, Liselle moved to the tunnel as quickly and silently as possible. The sounds of teeth rending slimy flesh made her gag again.
The tunnel was as dark as the cave, so she called her light and sent it ahead. Moisture dripped from the walls and ceiling, creating little rivulets of water along the floor. The reek of sstejj merged with wet rock. Three of the abominations were moving about in the distance of the tunnel, illuminated by her light.
Liselle had no idea where the long tunnel led. She just hoped she would be able to find her way home or, at the very least, find some plants to help guide her. Tears welled in her eyes again from fear and she angrily brushed them with a sleeve.
One of the sstejj ahead caught her scent and started sniffing the air with its gills. Liselle decided to try to sneak by it. She didn’t know how many daggers she could create and didn’t want to exhaust herself more than she already was. The monster came near her and she slid to the wall of the cave.
The sstejj opened its mouth and casually tried to bite her. Liselle dashed to the left. It followed her and tried to take another bite. Liselle moved to the other wall of the tunnel and hit it with a fireball. That was faster and took less energy than the dagger because she didn’t have to concentrate so hard to shape it. The monster screamed in agony as it turned to bite at the pain in its side. When it fell to the ground, the other two sstejj in the tunnel scurried toward it to feast. Liselle froze against the wall. From the cave came two more sstejj attracted to the smell of burning flesh. Liselle took off down the tunnel at a run, not caring if they felt the tremor of her steps. She just wanted to get away as fast as possible.
She stopped after a ways and put her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. The light had bobbed along next to her, faithfully illuminating the way.
The tunnel was a dark stone Liselle hadn’t seen before. Rocks covered the floor and there were occasional patches of phosphorescent moss, but not enough to see by. It was wide enough to fit a couple of wagons through and four times as tall as she was. The slow moving air was warm, sticky and unpleasant to breathe. Going back through the cave to try the other tunnel wasn’t an option, so she trudged down its length.
It seemed to continue forever. Liselle wished it would go up, but was happy it didn’t go down. She eventually stumbled to a stop and sat down on a boulder for a moment.
Liselle had lost track of time and was too tired to cry anymore. The feel of all the rock above her was heavy, as though the sky was worlds away. Her stomach growled with hunger and she realized she didn’t know when she had last eaten. Something clattered back the way she came. She stood quickly and directed her light that way. Nothing appeared.
After a few minutes of straining to see anything, Liselle turned and continued walking, hoping to find a way out. Her feet hurt and all of her muscles ached. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep, but was too afraid.
The next hour or so was a daze of darkness relieved only by the small blue light floating above her head. Then Liselle saw the tunnel widen in the distance. A slight breeze cleaned the stale air she had been breathing.
Liselle’s mind cleared some and she gained a second wind of strength. She began to jog toward the opening. After a moment, she slowed back down to a walk, quickly winded. A soft li
ght was just ahead.
She reached the end of the tunnel and looked into the new cave. There were patches of phosphorescent moss on the ceiling far above and even a few plants here and there. Most of the dim light came from fish and vegetation in a small lake to the right of the tunnel. Two small streams fed the lake from different directions.
Even though she was out of the tunnel and its darkness, Liselle didn’t feel comfort. Sstejj milled around like the ones in Krraa’s cave. The abominations seemed to have no purpose or direction unless Krraa was directing them. Liselle thought she could see three or four more large tunnels, but all of them would require making way through a hundred sstejj.
She leaned against the wall of the tunnel for a minute with more tears flowing down her cheeks. Liselle was so tired of crying. Going forward was the only choice. She would have to try to kill enough sstejj so they would go after each other instead of her.
Liselle heard a noise down the tunnel she had just come from. Looking back, she thought she saw light flare far away. The tunnel had been almost completely straight its entire length. A new sense of dread fell in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t think Krraa could have survived, but she hadn’t seen a body. Krraa had also talked about “them” when it referred to the hhorrj, meaning that there was more than one. What if another had come to the cave and was now hunting her. Another flash of light appeared. At least she thought it did. It was far away and she couldn’t make it out clearly. Liselle stayed frozen against the wall.
A sstejj appeared at the tunnel entrance, sniffing the air. Liselle prayed that it would go away. Her prayers were futile in this godforsaken place. The creature moved closer to her while she stood paralyzed in fear.
When the beast was right next to her, she felt the flower tugging in her hair. It was just enough to get her to move. She hit the sstejj in the throat with a fireball, killing it quickly. Then she ran into the cave, keeping to the left wall in order to avoid being surrounded.
Nearby sstejj smelled their dying friend and began heading toward it. Liselle walked along the cave wall, too tired to run more than a few steps. There were rocks and pebbles she tried to step over. Her feet were sore and tired from walking on so much stone and she wished for the soft grasses of the valley.
When she stumbled and fell to her knees, nearby sstejj turned to sniff the air. Liselle attempted to cast a fireball into one as she got back to her feet. It flickered out the first time but worked when she re-focused and tried again. They were becoming harder to create and she was so very tired.
It worked for a moment, but others started moving toward her. Liselle stopped to cast another fireball and another before falling to her knees again. It took all of her strength to stand up again and continue stumbling along. The next tunnel seemed far away. After a few more steps, she stopped to catch her breath. “Vevin,” she cried out weakly. It was all she could think of. Liselle wanted Vevin to come, take her back to the room, kiss her earlobe and lie down beside her.
She cast another fireball, killing one that was getting too close. The next fireball she tried to cast sputtered out. Liselle tried again, the flame flared and dissipated instantly. Her blue light began to flicker and dim, making things worse. She leaned against the wall of the cave and watched as sstejj scuttled toward her. “Vevin . . .” she whimpered pitifully.
A great roar rammed through the air from the tunnel. Following that was the body of a dragon hurtling from the entrance and into the horde of sstejj that stalked Liselle. Vevin’s scales were lighter purple than Liselle had imagined. His liquid-silver eyes glowed in the darkness, swirling in anger. She saw the scar on his cheek. It traveled from the bottom of his jaw all the way back to the top of his head, looking even worse in his natural form.
A grateful smile cracked Liselle’s face for the first time since being in the forsaken darkness of the sstejj-infested depths. Vevin did not breathe great bursts of lightning or cast terrible spells of destruction into the monsters as Liselle expected. Instead, he stomped them with all four of his great, clawed feet. Liselle imagined that he was doing a sstejj stomping dance. The dragon whipped his powerful tail about to crush them while his enormous wings created gusts that knocked them flat.
Vevin looked tired and worn. She felt sorrow for her poor dragon friend. How long had he searched for her? How many of the aberrations had he already destroyed?
She found one last reserve of strength from somewhere deep inside. Liselle tossed a fireball at the one sstejj who had gotten just a little too close. Then she blew softly toward the dragon who would rescue her. A strengthening energy was in that breath and it flowed toward Vevin.
When the breath reached Vevin, it filled him with new energy. He inhaled deeply. Purple lightning shot in an arc, killing all that remained. When he was done, he stood there huffing. His eyes swirled rapidly. They were large and even more beautiful than in his human form.
Liselle took a few steps toward him. “Vevin?”
Four purple lights appeared and moved to the top of the cave, illuminating their surroundings. “Liselle! I feared I would not be in time. I would never have forgiven myself.” His voice as a dragon was deep and sonorous. He did not form the words with his mouth, as would a human or Rojuun, but instead used an innate form of magic to create them.
“Oh, Vevin! I was so frightened!” She stumbled toward him while trying to avoid the fried bodies of sstejj. The greasy, burning stench of the creatures combined with the sharp smell of lightning made her stomach turn.
With four large steps, Vevin was next to her, lowering his head. “Don’t be frightened. I’ll keep you safe now.”
“Oh, Vevin!” Liselle threw her arms around his toothy snout and hugged it as best she could.
“I’m going take you to safety,” he told her soothingly. “I won’t allow you to be hurt. I simply will not allow it,” he said in a firm tone that left no doubt that he would not, in fact, allow it.
“Oh, Vevin.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. She just held him by his wonderful, scaly dragon snout.
He let her hold him for a few moments. “Liselle?” he said quietly.
“Yes, Vevin?”
“I love you, Liselle,” he said even more quietly, as though afraid of how she might answer.
Liselle straightened, releasing his snout. She looked into his swirling eyes and said, “I love you too, Vevin.” It was true. She had been falling steadily in love with him since they had met. She hadn’t told him before because she didn’t want to rush it and falling in love with a dragon seemed like an unusual sort of thing, but at that point, it seemed foolish not to admit it.
Vevin did a shuffling, tired, happy, in-love dance. Then he smiled a toothsome smile and leaned into her gently. “Climb my leg to my neck and we’ll get back to safety.” He put his front leg down next to her so she could climb it.
Liselle scrambled up his leg to the shoulder. She swung her foot between two large spine ridges at the base of his neck. When she was set, he turned, going back toward the tunnel.
“No!” she cried out in fear.
Vevin stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to go back there,” she sobbed.
Vevin turned his head to look around the cave at the other tunnels. “I don’t know how to get back through those tunnels, nor do I know what dangers lay in them. There are no sstejj left down this tunnel or in the cave beyond.” He looked back at her with a silvery eye, his long neck twisted in a half turn.
“Are you certain there’s nothing there, Vevin?” Liselle didn’t want to go back, but she didn’t want to get lost either. She was just so tired, scared, and tired of being scared.
“I’m certain, dearest Liselle.” When she didn’t protest further, he moved into the tunnel. It wasn’t big enough for him to fly through, so he jogged, which was faster than she would have imagined. He must have been running at full speed when
he came through the tunnel to save her.
She ducked down against him to hide her face when they entered the cave with the room where she had been imprisoned. The smell of burned sstejj remained, but Vevin moved quickly into the other tunnel.
The new tunnel angled up a bit, which made her happy. The way was illuminated by one purple light Vevin had kept. Dragons could see in other ways without light, meaning he was providing it for her comfort.
A short while later there was a small cave with a hole in the top. Liselle saw the mangled bodies of more sstejj before Vevin spread his wings. With a great leap of the legs and thrust of wings, Vevin shot upwards toward it.
Liselle held on for dear life as her stomach sank to her toes from the lift into the air. Two more flaps and they were hurtling into the hole that quickly became too small to spread his wings, so he tucked them in. Just as his momentum slowed enough to go into free fall, the hole opened into a new tunnel. Vevin spread his wings as much as he could and landed on the edge.
Liselle’s heart beat rapidly at the wild ride she just experienced. Vevin glanced back and saw an enormous grin beneath her wide eyes. He jogged up the new tunnel, running over occasional sstejj bodies he had killed in his search for her.
There were more tunnels and shafts to travel through. Each tunnel had increasingly more plants and phosphorescent moss. A dawning realization came over Liselle that she had been taken over a mile further into the depths of the world. That was in addition to however deep Garrrn Cavern was. From what the companions had been told, Garrrn Cavern was lower than most Rojuun territories.
Vevin finally entered the cavern from which Liselle had been taken. She was relieved to see the glow of plants once more. The smell of slaughtered sstejj was still heavy. Vevin spread his wings, rising into the air so he wouldn’t have to walk across anymore of the beasts. The cavern was more than large enough to accommodate his size.
He flew to the waterfall where the camp had been, but didn’t see anyone. Vevin turned and glided to the tunnel leading to Garrrn Cavern. Just before they reached it, he landed. Then he lowered himself, holding his leg out as a ramp.
Liselle climbed down the leg without needing to be told. Upon reaching the claw, she stepped down to the ground, only to have her knees buckle. She fell to the ground before Vevin could react. A second later, he was in human form, kneeling next to her. Vevin’s eyes swirled with concern. Liselle tried to stand, but dizziness overwhelmed her and she blacked out.
Rojuun Page 53