Chapter 7
Akarra awoke with a start; it felt like someone had kicked her. She sat up only to find Thaygos’ hand on her mouth.
“Quiet,” he whispered. “Something’s wrong.”
She looked at him, her antennae orange with puzzlement. “What is it?” she asked.
He pointed down the corridor that lay before them. It was dark in the distance. Too dark. She knew the passageway, like the others they had traversed, was lined with periodic Lightshards. It was the middle of the Dimlight. The light the Lightshards produced should be subdued, not gone entirely. Yet she looked down a hall with only two Lightshards producing any light at all. Beyond them, it was as black as a shardless cave.
She quietly arose and retrieved her Heartshard.
“What is it?” Thaygos asked.
“A Light-eater,” Akarra replied. “I can think of no other explanation.”
“Should we turn back?” he asked, gripping his spear. Such a weapon was nearly useless against a Light-eater. They fed on light. They lived in darkness. And their bodies were thin and wiry, resembling some kind of condensed shadow.
“Perhaps. If there is more than one,” Akarra said, squatting low and carefully holding her Shard before her. “Otherwise, we fight.” Encountering more than one Light-eater at a time was exceedingly rare and quite dangerous. They were intelligent beings and they used their numbers to outflank opponents. It was not common, but Akarra knew of at least one former Shardshaper who had fallen to a pair of Light-eaters—Ilyaya. Yridia’s former mentor.
“Okay,” Thaygos said. “What do I do?”
“You wait here,” Akarra said. Then she started to creep forward.
“Wait here?” Thaygos said. “I’m supposed to protect you.”
“Not from this,” she replied.
Up ahead, the furthest of the two still-glowing Lightshards went completely dark. Akarra peered in that direction, straining her eyes to make out what details she could. But there was nothing; it was all black. Fighting Light-eaters in the dark was sheer folly. You could not target what you could not see.
Fortunately, she had a remedy for that.
She lifted her Heartshard and concentrated. It glowed with stonelight: first red, then orange, then yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet: it changed to the invisible deathlight which hurt her hands, then surged with even more power. A beam of pure white stonelight—all colors and more—shot out and struck the nearest Lightshard.
The Lightshard burst afire with light and energy, glowing like it was midday. It cast its light down the hall in both directions. Thaygos, encouraged by the sudden visibility of things, moved up beside her brandishing his spear. She cast a single sidelong glance at him, but said nothing; he was a he-quartz, convinced that if there was fighting to be done, it should be done by him. Even though this foe had him completely outmatched.
It was a Light-eater. Two, in fact. The first glided forward into the light of the one remaining Lightshard. It was a thing of shadow surrounding itself in a mantle of darkness. Akarra could not make anything out about the creature; it was simply a dark, amorphous shape, a living shadow that moved rapidly down the hall toward them. The second, moving just as rapidly, followed perhaps ten feet behind the first.
Akarra lifted her Shard.
And Thaygos stepped right in front of her holding his spear at the ready.
“Out of the way!” she snapped, and shoved Thaygos roughly to the side.
“Sister Shardshaper,” one of the Light-eaters hissed in a haunting, empty voice sounding like scraping quartz. “Surrender your Heartshard and we will grant you passage. Resist, and we will ... suck ... you ... dry.” The words were weapons in themselves; they scratched at her ears, biting into her mind, worrying into her thoughts like a yenshi digger. Beside her, Thaygos grunted, dropped his spear, and lifted his hands to cup his ears. His antennae turned the deep maroon of pain. He staggered.
Akarra grimaced, blocking out the words as best she could before leveling her Shard at the nearer of the two Light-eaters. The pulsing piece of crystal ascended through the spectrum of colors until it reached the deathlight. It gathered its strength then shot out a pure beam of deadly energy. The beam was invisible; so Akarra could not see it, only sense it like a vague presence in the back of her mind. Still, it was her will that controlled it; she could aim it and target it as readily as any other beam of light.
It struck the first Light-eater head on garnering an intense shriek of pain from the creature and driving it back a full ten yards. Unfortunately, though, with Akarra’s attention on the first Light-eater, she could do nothing to stop the second. It glided forward the remaining few yards and wrapped itself around Thaygos.
This close, Akarra could see the creature’s form through its mantle of shadow. It was a spider-like creature of black light; a thing of spindly legs and hideous deformity borne up by wings of shadow and darkness. Its eyes glowed red, soulless orbs of grim countenance. Akarra shivered in spite of herself.
Thaygos screamed in pain. His antennae pulsed a deep maroon that seemed to break apart and flicker out from his antennae like dust might rise from a heavy footfall, sparkling all the way until it was consumed by the Light-eater’s hungry maw. He managed to retrieve his spear and strike the creature once with it, but the blow had little effect. A moment later, he collapsed in a heap on the tunnel floor.
The Light-eater dropped down to make the kill.
Akarra turned her deathlight upon the second creature just in time, blasting it in the side and driving it backwards into the wall, away from Thaygos. The creature shrieked, much like the other one, and rapidly flew backwards down the hall; Akarra harried it with the deathlight the whole way.
Only then, did she notice that the other Light-eater had not fled. Although clearly injured, it remained functional and very dangerous; it began moving down the hall toward them again, but instead of targeting her, it moved to the one remaining Lightshard, wrapped it in shadow, and began consuming its precious stonelight.
Visibility dropped by nearly a third before Akarra managed to target her Shard on the threat. It dropped by another third as her weapon ascended the spectrum of light. Finally, she managed to blast the Light-eater square on with a beam of deathlight. It shrieked one final time, then fled back down the hall into the darkness, where it quickly became invisible.
Alarmed now at the darkness—for she could see neither Light-eater in the poor visibility and either one might take the opportunity to slip into their camp unawares and attack them—she summoned another burst of powerful white light. She could still make out the dim form of the last Lightshard the Light-eater had attacked. She blasted it with full power. Immediately, it came to life, glowing with renewed light and energy.
Unfortunately, its entire surface was now cracked and shattered from its encounter with the Light-eater, and in that state, Akarra could only nurse about half of its normal level of light. Furthermore, since she was not bonded to this Heartshard, she could make no effort to repair the Lightshard.
But such limited efforts would have to do. At the very least, they would prevent the Light-eaters from sneaking up on them undiscovered.
A groan on her right reminded her of Thaygos. He’d been injured in the fight.
Turning, she knelt by his side and laid a hand on his neck. The Light-eater had drained a good portion of his lifelight. His antennae oscillated between black and deep maroon. That, at least, was a good sign; he had the strength to register his feelings.
As she had never bonded with the Heartshard, she lacked the ability to heal him, much like she lacked the ability to repair the Lightshard. She could use deathlight to reshape either one, but that would kill Thaygos and ruin the Lightshard.
She sat down beside him. She would have to be patient and nurse him back to health the old-fashioned way. Pulling out her Shard, she ascended through the spectrum until she reached the green of nourishment. Pulling him close to her, she let him feed. Then, she ascended to blue and let him d
rink. When he was finished she took a few victuals herself and said a brief prayer. For the remainder of the evening, she kept watch, silently trying to will the damaged Lightshard to produce more light.
Eventually, morning came. Although the hall ahead remained dark, the hall behind her around the corner lit up and told her a new day had begun. The drained Lightshards would repair themselves slowly over the course of the next great cycle—a full thirty-six oscillations between day and Dimlight—but she could not afford to wait that long.
She nudged Thaygos. “How do you feel?” she asked as he opened his eyes.
“Rotten,” he said. His antennae pulsed a deep maroon as he flopped himself onto his stomach and, using both arms, brought himself into a kneeling position. Then he lurched to the side and kicked his feet out so that he could sit with his back to the angled wall across from Akarra. “And hungry.” He pulled out his own nourishment prism, held it up to the dim light around them, and activated it, scattering the bulk of the colors of stonelight and only allowing the green of nourishment to pass through. After a while, he lowered the prism to the ground. “I’m thirsty,” he said. He glanced at the nearby water stala.
“It’s simpler if I do it,” Akarra said. She lifted her Shard and summoned the blue light of refreshment. He drank it in deeply. Eventually, he lifted a hand to signal her to stop. “Now, how do you feel?” she asked.
“Rotten,” he said. Then he smiled. “But sated.”
“We’ll rest here,” Akarra said. “A day or two. Then we must move on.”
They wound up resting for three days during which Thaygos ate and drank his fill and slept more than he was awake. Finally, on the fourth day he judged that he had regained the strength to continue the journey.
Akarra helped Thaygos to his feet and they set out down the hall. The passageway was long and straight, continuing in parallel to the passage they had just left. After a short while, the quartz here—or rather, the quartz behind the glass—turned clear again. The temperature dropped to an uncomfortable level forcing them to make use of Thaygos’ tetraflame. From the specially cut prism they generated sufficient heat to keep themselves, if not necessarily comfortable, at least, healthy and out of danger.
As they traveled they noted each of the Lightshards they passed; after the first, each one was dark, all stonelight drained, at least for the foreseeable future. Also, each pillar of crystal held numerous cracks and fissures—a sure sign that they had been victims of a Light-eater’s attack. Akarra was forced to use her Heartshard to produce the light they needed to see by.
Eventually they reached the end of the straightaway they were on and the passage folded back on itself. Then, it did it again. Soon, it was twisting and turning and folding about itself in a dizzying path to the unknown.
At noon, they stopped to rest by a water stala and a damaged Lightshard. They had a quick meal and Thaygos took a brief nap. Just enough to close his eyes and regain some strength. No more than thirty minutes.
When the time came, Akarra woke him with a gentle nudge and they set out again. A few hours later, after meandering through numerous more twists and turns in the passage they approached a triangular egress.
“Finally,” Thaygos said, using his spear to support himself. “I can hardly wait to be out of this forsaken labyrinth.” He started limping toward the exit more rapidly.
“Careful,” Akarra said. “Do not rush this. The Cave of the Heart Crystal is not far from the exit and I am uncertain what challenges it will set before us.”
“There are obstacles?” Thaygos said, stopping to look at her. “At the Cave of the Heart Crystal? Surely they can’t be worse than the Light-eaters.”
“We shall see,” Akarra said. Then, she took Thaygos by the arm and led him out into the light.
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