by Kyle West
“This is where I leave you,” Pallos said.
I threw my arms around him, holding him tightly. “Pallos. Thank you. For everything.”
Pallos was stiff at first, but then relaxed and returned the embrace. “It was nothing, Shanti. I really should be going now. The dragons . . .”
I nodded. “I know. Good luck.”
Pallos nodded, and as he turned, I saw a tear had formed. He only looked back once as the door closed behind him.
We walked a good distance away to avoid the heat of Odin’s thrusters, which had already scorched the xen beneath it. As soon as we were at a safe distance, Pallos revved up the ship’s engines and lifted off.
Despite Odin’s slower speed, he was up and away before we knew it, hidden by the blanketing clouds. The distant roar of the ship was soon replaced by the rush of water echoing off the cave walls.
We turned to face the Caverns of Creation, the last leg of our journey on Earth.
Chapter 57
The Elder Dragons guarding the entrance of the Caverns didn’t deviate from their patrolling, even as we watched them from the edge of the precipice. They circled silently and didn’t even seem to be aware of our presence. I reached out for them, but their minds were closed off; they had to have seen us. The others looked at them uneasily.
“What are they doing?” Shara asked.
“I don’t know.” I hefted my pack, settling it more comfortably on my shoulders. “I think they’re guarding the entrance and won’t leave it for anything.”
“There goes my idea of getting a ride, then,” she said.
I nodded toward the opening. “We should try to find a way down.”
But getting into the Caverns would be easier said than done. The Hyperboreans would have surely carved a path down the cliff face, but that would have been two centuries ago. Who knew if such a path still existed? I knew that there had been a long staircase leading from the Cloud Palace in the city to the Sea of Creation itself, but the Palace no longer existed in its former state. That staircase probably didn’t, either. But a way down might still exist here.
We split into two groups, one to go left, and the other right, to search along the entire length of the cliff, and then to meet back in the middle to report our findings. I didn’t like the idea of separating everyone; after all, the Radaskim dragons could still be coming. But two groups would allow us to find a way down twice as quickly. Quickly enough, I hoped, to avoid any unpleasantness.
Fiona and I ended up going left, while Shara, Isaru, and Isa went right. We waded up to our knees through the leftmost stream, which only thirty feet away fell off the cliff face and tumbled into the dark caverns. We searched for any trail, cliff, or even ladder that might lead further down. We walked all the way to the far side of the cavern entrance with no results. The cliff face was sheer, with no possible way down on foot.
“Let’s head back,” I said. “Let’s hope they found something.”
By the time we returned, the others were already waiting at Odin’s former landing site.
“Find anything?” I asked.
Shara nodded, and relief washed over me.
“It’s not pretty,” she said, “but there’s this staircase.”
“Is it safe?” Fiona asked.
“It’s more of a waterfall, actually,” Isa said. “It’s the only way down we could find.”
“Did you go all the way to the side of the cave?” I asked.
This staircase, if it was even navigable, would only be the beginning. It was still several miles to the shoreline of the Sea of Creation itself.
“Can you not try to reach the dragons to take us down?” Shara asked. “I really don’t know if I can handle it.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll ask.”
I closed my eyes and reached out, not just to the dragons circling above, but deeper into the Earth, where I figured the Elder Dragons to be. I felt their presence, but no acknowledgement of my connection.
We’re here, I said. Please. If any of you hear this, we could use a way down.
I waited for a long moment. As I feared, silence was my only answer.
I opened my eyes and shook my head. “Nothing.”
“What are they doing, I wonder?” Fiona asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it seems this staircase is our only choice.”
“Well, if nothing else, we should get moving,” Shara said.
Isaru led the way, and the rest of us followed. We crossed the rightmost stream, this one not as deep as the one we had waded before. We walked a few minutes, cresting a rise, after which Isaru made his way to the precipice. He stood there and waited for us to catch up
Once at the edge, I followed Isaru’s gaze, but couldn’t see anything. Not at first. When I did spy it, I saw why Shara was so apprehensive.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.
The staircase blended almost perfectly with the side of the cliff, being carved from it. The path was long, narrow, with a good half of the steps cracked or eroded away. It went almost straight down steeply, so steeply that we’d have to climb down it facing the stairs themselves, making it more of a ladder than a staircase. Worse, several hundred feet down, the stream above fell in a long waterfall, completely inundating the stairs and turning them into a rushing river coursing down the cliff. There was no telling if that part was even doable.
“Who’s first?” Isa asked, her tone trying to make light of a difficult situation.
Isaru nodded. “I’ll go.”
Without waiting for anyone to protest – which no one did – Isaru knelt and began to climb down. His face was quickly lost to view. Isa swallowed, then followed soon after him.
“I’ll bring up the rear,” Shara said, her face pale.
“Go before me,” I said.
Shara looked as if she wanted to protest, but to my surprise, she nodded. “Okay.”
I nodded toward Fiona, who went down next, looking pale as well, if not quite as pale as Shara. Looking down the cliff, Isaru had already made it a fair distance, perhaps a hundred feet.
“You got this,” I said to Shara.
“We’ll see,” she said. She closed her eyes, and I could feel her connecting to the Xenofold to steady her nerves. Her green eyes had taken on an eerie radiance.
She began climbing down. I waited only a moment before following her.
* * *
We descended for about fifteen minutes before Isaru reached the beginning of the waterfall. He tried shouting something up, but his voice was lost to the din of roaring water. Isa ended up relaying the message up the chain, until finally it reached me.
“He says there’s still stairs in the water, but the current is fast,” Shara said. “Try to pick the steps that have xen growing on them to get some traction.”
I nodded and watched as Isaru entered the fast-moving stream, the water pounding on him from above. It didn’t seem like a lot of water, but I knew the weight had to be almost crushing. If he lost his grip or leaned back a bit too far, the push of the waterfall could easily send him tumbling to his death.
It could do that to any of us.
“You okay, Shara?”
She nodded. “I’m in control.”
“Good,” I said. “You’re up.”
Isa and Fiona had already entered and were both following Isaru down at a good pace. They looked determined more than afraid. Shara took a deep breath and entered the curve of the steps, going down on all fours before continuing down further into the press of the water.
I entered soon after her. The water was cold, but not numbingly so. There was plenty of xen here, so grabbing onto it gave a firm enough handhold. Water splashed in my face, but there was nothing I could do to help that. The pressure of it wasn’t as great as I’d feared, but it did keep me from seeing properly.
Once through the falls, I wiped my eyes and looked down, to the sight of the stream rushing down the stairs madly. I wondered why people would have bui
lt a staircase here in the first place, until I realized that originally, there probably was no stream. It was hard to judge just how far the water rushed over the stairs, but there was a good thousand feet before the stream leveled out into a small pool which was fed by several other streams. That pool emptied out in what seemed to be a massive waterfall. It was impossible to see what came after that.
We picked our way down slowly and steadily. I placed one foot beneath the other, making sure my hold was firm before continuing. Each step brought us closer to the source of the Xenofold’s power, and we were near enough now that as each minute passed, I could feel that pulse thrumming with greater strength. Without even trying, my connection through Silence deepened, until I could feel the very consciousness of the xen surrounding me, sharpening my senses, allowing me to feel my way down with even greater confidence.
I felt the others’ connections as well. Even Shara was resolute, going down as quickly as the others and with just as much boldness. I could no longer feel my hands and feet, such was the chill of the water. But I was finding it didn’t matter. Just half an hour in, we were already most of the way down.
Isaru reached the end of the stairs, which were broken, the water tumbling over in a swift cascade into the pool below. Isaru jumped the final distance. He landed far out from the bottom of the falls, where the water was clear, under which glittering xen could be seen.
As he swam away from the falls, Isa jumped after him, with a scream that echoed off the cliff faces.
Shara and I reached the bottom of the stairs at about the same time as Fiona, and it was the first time I could get a sense of the distance below. It was a good thirty feet down, and there appeared to be no other way. Shara stared. Even the emotional numbing state of Silence wasn’t enough to keep her fear at bay.
“I have to do this,” she said. “Don’t I?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “It’ll all be over in a minute. Isaru and Isa seem to be fine.”
We watched as Isa swam up to the edge of the pool, where Isaru gave her a hand to help her out.
“Just get out before the current can pull you toward the falls,” Fiona said. “Watch where I land and follow.”
Fiona hesitated only a moment before jumping in. She was under the surface for a few seconds, coming up and stroking hard for the shoreline. Despite swimming sideways, the current was pushing her toward the top of the large falls, but she easily made it there in time to be helped by Isaru.
Shara shook her head. “I’ve heard you can get pulled down by a waterfall if you don’t jump out far enough.”
“You’ve got this, Shara,” I said. “Jump as far as you can.”
I felt her connection to Silence deepen. She mouthed the words one, two, three before jumping far and not looking back. She didn’t even scream. She swam hard for the shoreline, reaching it in record time. Only when she was safely on shore did I focus on making my own jump.
Staring down at the surface of the pool, I felt a bit of hesitation myself. But all the others seemed to be fine. I aimed for the spot they had jumped into and gave a mighty leap.
The fall seemed to take a long time, far longer than it should have. Long enough for me to wonder if I had made a horrible mistake. I felt the cold water rush past as I sunk all the way to the bottom, spring boarding off the xen beneath. I reached the surface quickly. I swam as hard as I could for the shore. Isaru and Shara were both waiting there to pull me out.
I only felt better once all of us were sitting on the shoreline, catching our breaths. When a few minutes had passed, we opened our packs and ate some of the food we’d brought, which was completely soaked. The pool emptied into the cataract which plunged over the overhang and into the sparkling chasm below. We couldn’t even see the bottom, since the cavern went down at about a forty-five-foot angle and the roof cut off our view a few hundred feet down.
“This isn’t the way we flew out with the dragons,” Isaru said, once he had finished eating.
There had been no waterfall there, unless this waterfall only happened when there was moisture on the surface.
“At least there’s a path down,” I said, pointing.
It was carved within the cavern itself, circling down and down with round windows chiseled from the cavern’s exterior.
“That looks safer than what we just did, at least,” Shara said.
Once all of us had finished eating, we moved on. This time, I took the lead, entering the tunnel which was only wide enough to go down in single file. The steps here were less steep, angling slightly down while curving around the central shaft through which the cataract fell. The only thing keeping away pitch blackness was the glowing xenolife surrounding us; not just xen, but also blue mushrooms growing out of the cracks in the walls, and pink hanging vines that may have even been planted there to provide light. Our wet boots sloshed over the rocky ground as we circled downward, the sound of the falls above growing dimmer. That sound returned once we were further down. We must have been nearing the bottom.
After another half hour, the tunnel opened into a wide cavern, verdant with underground life. The air was misty with the churning of the falls, this one far bigger than the one up above. Peering up into the cavern, the top was impossible to make out, cut off by the ceiling from which hung glittering stalactites. The path ran alongside the dark pool at the bottom, twisting its way downward alongside a rushing stream. It was darker down here, but we were getting closer. We had already descended most of the distance. All that was left was to go forward to the Sea.
We walked alongside the stream, placing our hands on the leftmost wall to feel our way forward. Though the life growing here had bioluminescence, it wasn’t enough for us to see perfectly. Even so, the going was much easier than up above. The path was made of smooth stones, obviously placed by people, and even after all these years, they still existed, only covered by xen at random intervals.
As we forged ahead, I felt the power of the Xenofold growing, so much so that it was hard to keep focus. I felt myself being pulled by it. I could see Alex in my mind, and the image was so firm that I knew it wasn’t just a thought. He was smiling at me. That smile said everything was going to be okay.
“Shanti?”
The image shattered, and when I looked up, Isaru’s face was above mine, and I was on the ground.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You fell,” he said, reaching out his hand. “Are you okay?”
Had I just hallucinated?
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
I nodded, taking his hand and letting him pull me up. “I . . . think so. We’re just getting close. It’s hard for me to keep my focus.”
“I’ll guide you,” he said.
“Me, too,” Isa said.
They each took an arm and walked me through the darkness.
The scenery hardly changed for the next hour. The path always went slightly down, but turned left and right here and there. There was a final turn, followed by a brightness at the end of the tunnel.
“I think that’s it,” Isaru said.
The stream slowed, but still ran along at a fast current as it left the tunnel to course through a high chasm, the top of which was about fifty feet above me. Memories returned to me of this place. Alex and I had walked through here four hundred years ago. That same sense of dread Anna had felt then returned to me now.
The Sea of Creation wasn’t far, now. I could feel its pulse beating, perhaps a couple of miles away through these twisting gorges. If we didn’t have that pulse to lead us on, we could easily get stuck wandering aimlessly through this maze.
But even knowing where to go didn’t mean these last two miles would pass easily. We made numerous turns, left and right, until everything started looking the same. We left the stream behind, instead following a dry riverbed leading toward the Sea. A shadow suddenly fell over us from a dragon passing overhead. All of us ducked out of instinct, but the dragon disappeared over the top of the chasm before any of
us could get a good look.
“Something must be going on with them,” Shara said, breaking the silence that had settled over us.
My head felt light, in a way not unlike how I felt during my duel with Nalam. My vision swam before me. Sensing my weakness, Isa and Isaru led me on, lending me more of their strength.
“Almost there,” Fiona said. “I feel its power, too.”
At last, we made one final turn, and there it was at the canyon’s opening. The glittering Sea of Creation was almost blinding to look at, a sparkling pink surface that cast its colorful luminescence on all our faces. Weeks after we had left it, it was already shining brighter than it ever had, like a sea of fiery rubies. As we strode purposefully toward it, that brightness only increased, until its aura shone all around us. Something was happening, something to do with the dragons. Something to do with Tiamat. The Sea seemed to sense our coming.
We left the canyon and found ourselves on the Sea of Creation’s rocky shoreline. There, at last, we came across the Elder Dragons, at the Sea’s edge and facing toward its center, the Point of Origin. They stood wing to wing, their spiky backs pointed toward us, none of them turning at our approach. Their shadows fell toward us, dozens of feet long, from the central source of light I couldn’t look at directly, as if a sun were burning here underground.
I shielded my eyes and strode forward, the others following me. After a long journey, we were here. The true test would soon begin.
Chapter 58
The dragons stepped aside as we approached the ichor lapping against the rocks. The Sea had drawn them, just as it had drawn us, their minds being completely occupied by the pulsating Point of Origin. I kept walking until I stood ankle-deep in the warm, swirling ichor of the Sea. The power of the Sea infused itself into my skin, until my entire body began to glow with radiance. My friends, standing on my either side, had similar auras around them.
Is this dangerous?