Volcrian's Hunt (The Cat's Eye Chronicles)

by T. L. Shreffler

  He cast a glance at her. A wry grin curved along the corners of his mouth. He looked at her a little too long, and it made her stomach squirm, her cheeks flush self-consciously. “Several times,” he said. “Would you like more details?”

  “Uh, no, I'm fine,” she said briefly. Yes! her mind admonished. Yes, ask him! No, it would be far too awkward, she could already feel the blush spreading from her cheeks up to her forehead. She wondered what he must think of her. She felt terribly clumsy and naïve at that moment.

  His smile widened and he laughed softly, turning away. “Innocent,” he murmured.

  Sora frowned, trying to regain her speech. “Well...uhm,” she licked her lips. “Some people value innocence.” Her blush deepened, and she wondered why she felt the need to defend herself.

  “A valid point,” he said, and met her eyes again. He held her gaze intently.

  Sora almost tripped over her own feet. She slowed down a bit, allowing him to move in front of her. She needed a moment to regain her composure. So Crash had been with women in his colony—fine, she hadn't expected him to be a virgin. He had a good handful of years on her, anyway—seven or eight; she had never asked directly. Still, for some reason, the thought of him being with a woman of the Sixth Race...some tall, beautiful woman who had no qualms about joining...who was experienced in the ways of making love....

  Her thoughts made her choke. More disturbing was how her body reacted—she felt warm, slightly weak....She forced her mind away from that territory. Dangerous, she told herself, to be thinking of him like that.

  Suddenly the assassin stopped in his tracks. Walking up to him, she noticed that he was staring hard into the distance. Concerned, she said quietly, "What is it?"

  “Listen,” he said.

  Sora paused, turning her head. It took a long moment. Then, from the hollow distance, she heard a reverberating howl. It began with the low-pitched ferocity of a wolf, then grew in volume, amplified by the sunstone walls. It ended in the high shriek of a wildcat.

  A shudder went down her spine. She almost dropped her staff.

  “What was that?” she asked, her mouth dry.

  “I don't know,” Crash said, then he turned to look back the way they'd come. “But it's getting closer.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Run.”

  Crash bolted down the crevice, grabbing her hand and hauling her behind him. It took a moment for Sora's legs to catch up. She was still stunned by the eerie howl. Now that she was listening for it, she heard another one begin. It rumbled low to the ground, then ended high in the air, a shrill and furious pitch. Her breath caught. It was the same howl that had shaken her from the rock bridge. Fear raced down her spine, through her legs and into her boots.

  “Faster,” Crash breathed.

  Within a minute, she heard another sound—the thunder of feet against the ground. Or paws. A creature of some kind. She chanced a look over her shoulder, but all she saw was a rising cloud of white dust, kicked up from whatever was following them.

  “We're trapped,” she panted. “We should save our energy and fight.”

  “Look ahead,” Crash said, and pointed.

  Sora narrowed her eyes, squinting into the white distance. “What?” she asked.

  “It looks like a wall...or perhaps a door. I think we can climb it.” He didn't sound very certain.

  Sora gripped her staff, her mind whirling, trying to come up with a solution. “How far?” she panted.

  “Under a mile.”

  So they would reach a dead-end. The thought unnerved her. But given the circumstances, they could only keep running. She mentally reached out to her Cat's Eye, hoping for some sign, some indication of what to do. Yes, the necklace breathed. This way.

  Suddenly, the ground dropped out from under them. The sand hid a steep slope from their eyes. They skidded downward, holding each other for balance, then staggered back to their feet at the bottom. They leapt back into a full run, sprinting onward, moving as one. The creature's howls increased in volume.

  Finally, the end of the ravine came into view. Sora would have gasped if she weren't running for her life. True to Crash's words, there appeared to be a wall in the distance, but as they neared, she noted strange irregularities along its surface. No, not a wall—a door. A giant door, perhaps hundreds of feet high, stretching far up the edge of the ravine. No human could have opened it—or built it, she suspected. Perhaps an ancient relic from the Harpies. She had difficulty thinking it was real, it was so large.

  As they grew closer, bold designs carved by ancient hands stood out on the door's surface: suns and moons, stars, swirls and lettering. The doors were carved from sunstone, as smooth as glass.

  “Climb!” Crash yelled, and he threw himself on the doors, starting upward at a formidable pace.

  Sora stared after him, shocked. Climb? The doors looked shiny and slick, though the carved shapes would offer handholds and footholds. But the howling was now so intense that it made her head hurt. It ricocheted off the walls, echoing through the cavern. The creature was almost upon them.

  She shouldered her staff. When she reached the wall, she used her momentum to run up its side, then grabbed onto a large star-shaped carving that was several yards above the ground. She pulled her weight up the side of the door, but she couldn't move half as fast as the assassin.

  “Higher!” Crash called down. “Hurry!”

  Sora fought for balance on the slick stone, hand after hand, fingers crammed into the crevices, digging for purchase. All she could do was focus on the space in front of her.

  Wham! Something slammed into the door beneath her. She almost lost her hold. Sora quickly regained her footing and climbed a few more feet. Wham! It struck the doors again. She chanced a look over her shoulder and stiffened in terror.

  A massive jaw gaped open beneath her. It was lined with fine-edged teeth. White saliva foamed at its lips. And above that gray muzzle were bright, burning eyes, the color of blue fire.

  The beast was massive. It appeared to be a great cat, its body long and sinewy, covered by a thick coat of white fur and a long, lashing tail. Sprouting from its neck was a mane of iron-gray quills, short and bristling, as sharp as needles. Its paws were like giant clubs pounding against the door, thick and heavy, leaving jagged tears in the rock. Spiraling horns protruded from its skull and smaller spikes jutted from the ridge of its neck. Its muzzle was blunt, thick, wide. Its ears were small, pressed against its head in fury.

  This was the garrolithe.

  Sora forced herself to keep climbing, trying to stay calm. She was at least twenty-five feet above the ground now. The great beast kept leaping at her, but couldn't quite reach.

  “Sora!” Crash yelled. “Here! Take my hand!”

  She looked up. He was crouched on a ridge of stone next to the great door, higher up on the wall of the ravine. She maneuvered toward him, wedging her feet into the stone ridges, gripping the rock with her fingers. Her muscles strained, filled with adrenaline. She tried to focus on the door without losing her grip.

  Finally, finally, she was close enough to reach out. Crash grabbed her wrist firmly and dragged her upward, pulling her onto the small ridge next to him. She fell back against him, shuddering, her knees suddenly weak. He held her firmly back from the ledge as they stared down at the beast. The creature had given up on the door and was looking up at them with startling intelligence. Its eyes glowed with blue light, no pupil or iris, unnervingly flat.

  Then the beast turned and walked toward the side of the ravine. Its coat shimmered with light. A moment later, it dissolved into the sunstone, melting into the wall of the cavern.

  Sora stared at the place where the beast had disappeared. For a moment, she thought she saw the outline of its body embedded in the rock, shifting with the light, and then it was gone.

  “Goddess take me,” she murmured. “What was that?”

  “The guardian of the caves,” Crash replied, his voice equally soft.
r />   Sora touched her Cat's Eye, her hand shaking. “It wasn't natural,” she said.

  “No, it wasn't.”

  They sat for a moment longer. Sora still felt like she wanted to scream. The Crystal Caves had turned from a mystical labyrinth into a gilded death trap. The garrolithe was by far the worst of it. The beast didn't seem like something that could be killed. She wondered who had created it, where it had come from, how it was possible.

  “Look," Crash murmured. He nodded to their left, where the ledge met with the side of the door. A large crack worked its way up the wall, creating a break between the door and the rest of the ravine. It was deep and wide, large enough for a human to pass through.

  Sora nodded. “Let's go,” she said immediately. She didn't want to sit on this ledge too long. The beast had dissolved into the sunstone walls—who knew where it would appear next. Perhaps directly next to them, ready to rip out their throats.

  “I'll go first,” Crash said.

  Sora blanched. “No, I'll go first!”

  He gave her a small smile. “Lost your nerve, have you?”

  She scowled at him. Yes, she was terrified, and she wasn't afraid to admit it. “I'd be a fool not to fear that beast,” she snapped. “You're not leaving me behind.”

  Crash turned back to the crevice. “We don't know where this hole leads. I'll go first. If it's safe on the other side, I'll call to you.” He glanced at her. “I'm not leaving you.”

  Sora gritted her teeth. Of course she knew that, but it didn't calm her nerves. She forced herself to nod.

  “Be quick,” she said. “If you're gone for more than a minute, then I'm coming through after you.”

  He nodded firmly. Then the assassin started forward, twisting and shifting his lean figure through the narrow crevice. Sora watched nervously, checking over her shoulder, scanning the ground below. The beast's paw prints were filling in with sand. In another minute or two, they would disappear altogether.

  "Crash?" she called after a little time had passed. She listened for his response but didn't hear any. “Hello?” she called again. Her voice echoed dully off the rock, but there was no reply.

  She let out a short, irritated breath. She couldn't wait any longer—she felt as though the beast still lingered, hidden somewhere behind the walls. “I'm coming through!” she called, then turned sideways, easing herself into the crack. It was an impossibly tight fit; Crash had made it look easy. She inched forward, one foot at a time, guiding herself along the wall.

  In the enclosed space, the light of the caves was as good as darkness. The wall in front of her was so white she couldn't see the details in the stone, its shape or shadow. She kept pausing to blink, trying to clear her vision. She felt like she was staring straight into the sun.

  Her ankle caught on a rock and she had to twist for a moment, struggling to free it. Then her clothes snagged. At one point she had to stoop down, trying to fit under a jutting overhang. She bumped her head against the sharp stone, letting out a curse of pain. “Damn!” she muttered fiercely at the cave wall. “The winds take you!”

  Then Crash's voice drifted to her, faint and muffled. “Sora? Are you all right?”

  “Yes!” she called back. “Everything is just fine! I don't need help!” She continued to curse as she squeezed her way through the narrow spot, sucking in her breath, scraping her ribs. She paused twice to dislodge her staff from the rocky ceiling. Finally she spilled out of the crevice, losing her balance, tumbling to her knees. She barely stopped herself from landing flat on her face.

  Crash's boots were directly in front of her. “Easy now,” he said and offered her a hand up. He looked amused, perhaps laughing at her—at least inwardly. She glared at him but took his hand anyway.

  Once on her feet, she brushed off her clothes and tried to recover a bit of her lost dignity. Then she turned to survey the new cavern.

  Her eyes lit up. At first, she didn't know what she was looking at. Mounds of sunstone faced her, cut through with long veins of color, as vibrant and varied as a rainbow. It was very different from the ravine they had just left. This chamber was huge, a vast cavern stretching at least a square mile. The roof was high above, made of jutting stalactites of bright green, red, blue, silver...the colors were endless.

  In the middle of the chamber stood a giant pillar of sunstone. It spanned from the floor to the ceiling, supporting the massive cave. The pillar must have been thousands of feet in diameter, large enough to encase a small town. Veins of brightly colored rock ran up and down it, several yards wide in some places.

  Their ledge stood about fifty feet above the floor of the cavern. The walls were covered with the same bright sheets of rock. This close, Sora could see thousands upon thousands of tiny round stones bunched inside the veins, forming up through the sunstone.

  The colorful jewels were amassed much thicker on the floor of the cavern, where they piled up from the ground, resembling coral reefs. Only a few sunstone paths remained, cutting natural passages through the colored rock, perhaps where water had once flowed. The paths twisted around each other, creating a giant maze as far as her eye could see.

  Awestruck, Sora stepped toward a nearby wall, squinting more closely at the veins. Cat's Eye. An entire cavern of Cat's Eye.

  An odd tingle moved through her necklace, into her skull and down her spine. Then the stone moved on her chest—actually moved! It spun in a lazy circle, dancing with excitement. She could feel its euphoria bubbling up inside of her and had the urge to laugh, an intense happiness that she couldn't explain. Home, she heard. Heart. It warmed her, forcing a smile to her lips. It was as though she could feel the cave's heartbeat, a vibration that echoed through the expansive cavern. She understood now where the winds came from. Here we are, she thought. Where humanity discovered the Cat's Eye—where the War changed.

  “By the North Wind,” she whispered. “Crash...look at them all.”

  The assassin nodded, also gazing at the cavern. “They're growing through the rocks,” he said.

  Sora glanced at him. “Growing?”

  He nodded.

  “But stones don't grow.”

  “Cat's Eyes do. Here, anyway.” His eyes scanned the cavern. “The ocean amplifies magic. All of that energy has to be stored somewhere, or else it would tear apart the earth. They say that's how the Cat's Eye formed.”

  Sora felt a rush of understanding. “Like a coal becoming a diamond,” she murmured. “The magical pressure builds until the sunstone turns into a Cat's Eye.”

  “Exactly.”

  She considered that for a moment. “This is a dangerous place,” she finally said. “We should be careful not to touch any of them.”

  “Naturally,” he agreed. “I think this is where your Cat's Eye has been leading you. Can it find us a way to the other side?”

  She nodded. She could tell by the reaction of the necklace. The Cat's Eye still spun at the end of its chain, circling in her thoughts as well.

  “Do you think Burn and Laina will find their way here?” she asked, reminded of her friends and suddenly worried. This new cavern was radiant—but would they know its danger? Burn, perhaps. But not Laina.

  “If they stayed on the same path,” Crash said. “We should search for other tunnels.”

  She nodded and turned to the side of the ledge. Footholds had been carved out of the rock; it wasn't a true staircase, but a vague remnant of times long past. Crash followed her down the steep slope of the wall, digging their feet into the indents. Both were careful not to touch the ribbons of Cat's Eye, their colors vast and varied, bright as gemstones, glinting in the light.

  Once on the floor of the cavern, the Cat's-Eye stones turned into large mounds, some taller than her head. They passed through pillars of rock, navigating the maze, searching for a sign of their lost companions.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SORA AND CRASH made countless turns. Through her necklace, she could sense an exit toward the opposite end of the cavern. But it wasn't the d
irection where she thought Burn and Laina might arrive. The Cat's Eye had originally led them through a tunnel that would have connected to the far right of the cavern, close to the giant doors.

  After an hour of fruitless searching, Sora paused, raising her head. A faint murmur reached her ears. She turned, trying to see above the giant mounds of rock. Crash stopped walking, too, and turned toward the sound.

  “Sora!” she heard again. The voice was dim, but grew louder with each echo. “Sora!” it repeated.

  “This way,” Crash said, and turned down another path.

  Hope bloomed in Sora's chest. “I'm here!” she called, jumping up, trying to wave her hand around the rocks. “Hello?”

  “Sora!” the voice cried again. This time she recognized it. Goddess...Laina!

  They made a few more turns and then found themselves at the entrance of another tunnel. It curved up and sideways, turning out of sight back toward the ravine. Burn and Laina stood at its mouth, relief on their faces.

  Burn approached Crash and they shook hands, clasping at the wrists.

  “Well met, Wolfy,” the assassin said.

  “Same to you,” Burn replied. He nodded back to the tunnel. “We crossed the stone bridge and followed the path. It led us directly here. I had a feeling we were on track. There was no other way forward.”

  Laina launched herself at Sora, gripping her in a tight hug. “The Goddess must be protecting you!” she gasped. “I thought you were dead, but Burn gave me hope! How did you survive that fall?”

  Sora's mouth opened. How indeed? She didn't want to uncover Crash's secret; she didn't think Laina would understand. The two already didn't like each other. But there was no other plausible excuse.

  “I don't know,” she finally said. “I passed out. Crash is very skilled. He managed to do something miraculous...again.” She tried to smile.

  Laina's eyes narrowed, looking at her shrewdly, her lips pursed. “I passed out, so I didn't see it myself,” she said, lowering her voice. “But it must have been some kind of magic.” She took Sora's hand. “I'm glad you're alive, but I don't trust Crash. I think he's keeping something from us. Please watch out for yourself!”