This was something for which he wasn't prepared, and it was a bit eerie. So eerie that he had to ask Sarraya. "Sarraya, is it me, or does the air seem different to you?"
"Air thins as you get higher off the ground," she said, which affirmed his suspicions. "It's natural."
"Good. I was starting to wonder if I was imagining things. It's quite a view, isn't it?"
"I may be a flier, but this is a little bit too high for my taste," Sarraya admitted. "I get dizzy looking down. I do my flying a little closer to the ground, thank you."
Tarrin actually laughed. "A flying Faerie, afraid of heights," he said. "What an amazing thing."
"It's more than that," Sarraya said defensively. "My wings have to work harder up here, and it'll tire me out if I have to fly too far. That gives me all the reasoning I need not to like being up this high."
"Sure," Tarrin said with a slight smile. "Look, you can see the Great Canyon from here," he said, pointing south, towards a black slice across the sand-colored terrain.
"That's not the Great Canyon, Tarrin," Sarraya said. "That's that gulley we saw two days ago."
"You're sure?"
"Trust me. We're too far away to see the Great Canyon, at least from here. Maybe if we were higher, but not from here."
"Whatever. So, what's for lunch?"
"Since you're doing something strenuous, you're going to have bread soaked in honey," she told him. "You need to keep up your energy, and honey is perfect for that."
After a meal that was entirely too sweet for him, they started again. It was past noon now, and he had no idea how far he had to go, so he was starting to get a little worried. If he couldn't get to the top before sunset, he'd have to climb back down below the cloud and wait until sunrise. The idea of spending a night clinging to the side of the spire was something that he absolutely did not want to experience, so he started off again with a sense of urgency, and a swifter pace. He spent less time looking for the easiest path and started moving almost purely vertically, scrabbling over areas of smooth stone by clawtips and brute strength to save precious time.
He reached the edge of the cloud about half an hour after eating lunch, and it was like climbing up into thick fog. He could barely see past his own paws, and the stone suddenly became wet and slick. That combination was enough to make Tarrin's heart race, and make every step up the spire something to worry over and take carefully. He was surrounded by misty white, a mist that was surprisingly cool, nearly cold, and it isolated him and reflected back the sounds of his own climbing. The barest whisper of claw on stone was a ragged scrape to his ears, and a whisper seemed to boom across the foggy, surreal, vertical landscape. Even the sound of his own breathing, which was more rapid now in the thinning air, seemed to reverberate back from the fog, and he wondered if they could hear it on the ground for one irrational moment.
The fog did more than make his sounds louder. It caused him to forget just where he was and how high he was off the ground, causing him to lose his sense of fear of the dizzying height from which he was off the ground. He could barely see past his own feet, and it reinforced the illusion that he was not far from the ground. The wet stone was slick, but the sense that he had somehow climbed into another world didn't make his heart jump if his claws slid on the stone.
He had no idea how long he had climbed, or how far. The cloud--or the fog, as he thought of it--blurred his sense of time and of distance, making him feel like he was climbing the same wall over and over. He simply kept moving, aware that when the filtered light in the cloud began to dim, he was going to be in trouble.
He kept moving until his paw hit something solid above his head.
That startled him. He looked up a bit more carefully, and then pulled himself up enough to get whatever it was into view through the foggy cloud.
It was a shelf of rock that extended out horizontally from the rock spire, and it was absolutely smooth.
What was it? He couldn't see very far to either side, but it was apparent that it was not a natural feature, just by looking at it. It was too smooth, to level. The sense of the object, and of the Conduit that ran through the middle of the Cloud Spire, had dulled his sense of magic, but now that he was close, he could sense that this shelf of rock had been magically shaped.
Was he at the top? Was this the lowest edge of the dwellings the Aeradalla had made? No, it couldn't be. They wouldn't be crazy enough to put dwellings inside the cloud. They wouldn't be able to see to fly. This had to be something else. Some kind of brace or support, or something he couldn't imagine.
On the other hand, it could very well be an Aeradalla dwelling. For all he knew, the cloud's upper edge was only spans above him--going by pure altitude--and all he had to do was either go around this obstacle, or find some way to climb out onto it and get high enough to get above the cloud.
Going out onto it seemed insane. It was smooth, wet, and it was horizontal. He had no way to climb out onto it, because there was nothing for his claws to snag. He had to go around it.
A thought reached him. If he was caught above the cloud by the Aeradalla, his spire-climbing career may be cut brutally short. He had no idea how they may react to an invader climbing up into their domain. He realized that he might have to wait just inside the cloud until darkness, and then continue up by the light of the Skybands and the moons. But that was an issue to take up once he found the top of the cloud.
He almost chuckled inwardly. He did it again. The Cat did it to him again, made him form a half-baked plan that he'd have to abandon early, and continue on by the seat of his pants. The cat was a creature of impulse, and planning things out was an alien concept to it. It lived in the moment, and thinking ahead required going against that instinctual concept of life. One of these days, he was going to sit down and think one of these wild ideas all the way through.
Then again, if he did that, he may not be willing to do things like this.
"What is that doing here?" Sarraya finally asked.
"I have no idea, but we have to go around it," he told her.
"It looks like it was made," she said, peering through the thick fog.
"Magic," he told her shortly. "Now keep quiet, if you don't mind. I don't need to be distracted right now."
But moving along the base of that horizontal barrier proved fruitless. It seemed to extend as far as he went on both sides, and he realized that it had to be something placed there to do exactly what it was doing to him, keep him from going any higher. He had the sneaking suspicion that it went all the way around the rock spire.
Since he couldn't go around it, he had to go over it.
"Sarraya, I need you," he said after realizing that.
"What do you need?"
"I think this is a barrier put here to keep people from getting up there," he told her. "I can't climb over it myself. Do you know any spells that will help me get over it?"
"Um...yes, I know something," she said after a moment of thought. "A spell that will make your paws and feet stick to the stone, like a spider. It's not an easy spell, so I can't maintain it for more than a few minutes."
"Sarraya, I have no idea how far we have to go," he said in protest. "I'm not going to hang my tail out there unless I know we can get back to safety."
"Well, it was a thought," she said glumly. "It's the only thing I know to help you climb out there."
Tarrin looked at the rock. And he got an idea. "Sarraya, can you look into the rock and see if there are any caves in there? Something that goes up to the top?"
"Clever," she said in appreciation. She got off his head and hovered in the air over his head, her little wings beating frantically at the thin air to keep her stable, as he felt her probe the rock with her Druidic abilities. "Clever boy," she laughed. "There's a small lava tube about a hundred spans into the rock, and it goes pretty far up. I think it may go up to the very top. But it's too small for you."
"Is it too small for my cat form?"
"Clever!" Sarraya said brightly. "
Your cat form will fit in it, but it'll be cramped."
"Now, how do we get in there?" he asked.
"We can burrow into the rock," Sarraya offered. "We could look to see if it opens somewhere that we can reach, or we could try to use magic to penetrate the rock and reach the tube."
"How long would it take if we burrow?"
"I could burrow a tunnel all the way in, but I can't make it very large," she told him. "We have to figure out some way to get you into that tunnel while in cat form, and that won't be easy. If you try to shift hanging on the rock, you're going to fall."
"Can you make an opening large enough for me to squirm into, then go with the narrow tunnel the rest of the way?"
"I think I could," she said after a moment. "I'll be pretty much wiped after this, so you'd better not ask for anything else."
"Then let's try it," he said. "If anything, it'll give us a place to rest for the night, if we can't get to the top."
"Alright. Move down some so I have some room."
Tarrin did that for her, moving about ten spans from the barrier. Sarraya hovered in a position over his head, then put her hands on the stone. He felt the sudden surge of power from her, a visible aura around her for just a moment, and then there was a sound like cracking stone. The stone around her suddenly shattered. Not exactly like that, but it did instantly turn into dust, and that dust suddenly billowed out from the huge hole she had made, falling over him and making him sneeze. She disappeared from his view, going into the hollow she had just made, and then he felt another powerful surge of her power, and a crack sound that seemed to go deeply into the stone. He felt it through his paws.
What he wasn't ready for was the sudden explosion of wind that came through that newfound passageway, sending dust streaming out on that sudden, fierce wind. More than dust. Sarraya came spinning out of the new tunnel like a leaf on the wind. He felt a wild surge of panic when she spiralled into the fog and out of sight, but then he heard her wings in the fog, and saw her. Her damp body was now covered with sticking dust, making her look like she'd fell into mud. Her tiny face was drawn, and she could barely fly in a straight line. She was panting heavily, and she landed on Tarrin's back and grabbed hold of his braid, sucking in air.
"That's it for me," she wheezed. "I couldn't even conjure up a pebble right now."
"You've done enough, Sarraya," he told her. "Let me climb into the hole, and we'll rest a while before we move, alright?"
"Fine," she puffed.
The wind continued to flow through the tunnel, funneled by its small size. She had made an opening just big enough for him to slide into, and it narrowed considerably to something that would be a tight fit even for his cat form. He pulled in and shifted quickly, feeling the wind tug at his fur and dry his eyes. Sarraya flopped down against his side, and he curled up around her to keep her warm and give her something soft to rest against. "Where is this wind coming from?" he demanded in the manner of the Cat.
"The tube has to open to the outside," Sarraya said aloud weakly. "When I opened this tunnel, it gave the air in the tube a new way to go."
"Is it going to stop? I really don't want to have to crawl with it in my face."
"I have no idea," she replied. "At least thank it for blowing out the dust, or we'd have had a very unpleasant trip through it."
Tarrin hunkered down against that chilly, damp wind and waited. He needed to rest, and Sarraya definitely needed to rest. They did so for a considerable time, as he noticed the light in the cloud starting to dim. "It's getting close to sunset," he realized. "And the wind is starting to die down."
"I guess the sun was making it flow like that," Sarraya said, her voice stronger now. She had cleaned the dirt off of herself, at least after Tarrin started trying to groom her. The dust didn't taste very good, but his compulsive need to keep clean was enough to make him try to clean up his friend. "When do you want to go?"
"When you feel up to making light. It'll be pitch black in there, and I don't want to move around in there in the dark."
"Good point."
They rested a while longer, and Tarrin spent that time listening. Not to any sound, but to the eerie harmonic echoing that reverberated through him. It was a magical effect, caused by his proximity to the Conduit. It ran through the center of the rock spire, and now that he wasn't so intent on climbing, or sleeping, he had a chance to notice it. He had the feeling that if he got closer, its song would become more clear to him. It was nothing of any great importance or danger, however. He had passed through strands, even Conduits before. If he had to pass through that one, it shouldn't do any harm. He looked at Sarraya, who was sleeping against him, then out into the cloud. It started right after the entrance, hiding everything and muffling all sound, giving him the sensation that he and Sarraya were now the only people left in the world. At least in this world. That silence lulled him to put his head down, and since he had nothing else to do, he promptly went to sleep.
A considerable time after the cloud outside became dark--he wasn't sure, keeping track of time while in cat form was very difficult for him--Sarraya stirred from her nap, waking him. She yawned and stretched, then gave him a light smile. "Alright, I'm ready," she called. "I'll go first with the light. I'm smaller than you, so I shouldn't have too much trouble navigating. You can come along behind me."
Tarrin nodded, feeling the wind starting to move again. But this time, it was coming from the entrance and blowing back down the tunnel, not coming out of the tunnel. And it was only a gentle breeze, not the stiff wind that he'd felt when he crawled in. Sarraya held out her hands, and a little ball of soft white light appeared over them. She looked back at him and grinned, then started walking into the very small tunnel she created that reached what she called a lava tube.
It was a tight squeeze. Tarrin had to wriggle his way through the tunnel, leaving a little fur behind in a few places. The tunnel wasn't uniform in size, it tended to drift in size as he moved through it. Not by much, but since it was a tight fit in the first place, a small amount of shrinking meant that wriggling became necessary to get through it. He squirmed along after Sarraya for what seemed to him to be quite a while, and then she stopped. He came up behind her and saw that her tunnel joined with another tunnel that was eerily circular in diameter. Almost like a wellshaft, but it ran up and at a rather steep angle. It was a bit larger than Sarraya's tunnel, and its walls were covered with strange, glassy rock that had a rippled surface, almost like ice.
"Here we are," Sarraya said, holding her little ball of light out into the strange cave. "One lava tube."
"Why call it that?"
"That's what it is," she replied. "This used to be a volcano, a long time ago. These little tubes form in volcanos when the lava hardens on the outside, but stays liquid inside. The lava inside forms these tubes."
"I didn't know that," he said, looking at it. The air within smelled dusty, but it did move. There had to be another exit from the place, and from the feel of the air, that exit was above them.
As near as he could tell, the tube ran parallel to the outer edge of the spire, slowly curving inward. Tarrin found it very hard going, for the rippled rock was as slick as glass, and his claws had a hard time finding purchase. More than once he slipped, and slid along the glassy surface for long distances before catching himself, forcing himself to climb the same expanses of tube again and again. For every span he managed to climb, he usually slipped back half of it. The tube was large enough for Sarraya to fly, but the thin air in the tube tired her quickly, and she had given it up for simply riding on Tarrin's back like she had done when she lost her wings. The angle of the tube didn't change much as he scrabbled his way upwards, but he did notice that the slope did level out a little bit as he managed to get further into the tube.
Time was hard to keep track of in cat form, so he had no idea how long he had been climbing when they reached its end, when a splash of light began to reflect off from the glassy surface just around a sharp turn in the tube
above them. "There's the end," Sarraya said.
"I see it."
What he didn't count on when he turned the corner was that it was indeed the end. It opened to the sky, a daylit sky, and that the mouth of the tube was covered by a metal grate. The Aeradalla had noticed the tube, and had barred it off, probably to keep children from getting too curious. The metal grate was thick, heavy, and the bars were too close together for him to wriggle through them.
"Daytime? Did I sleep that long?" Sarraya said in confusion.
"Don't ask me, you know I can't keep time like this," he told her. "Can you get that out of the way?"
"Sure, hold on," she told him confidently. She flitted up to it and put her hand on one of the bars, and it began to rust away at an astounding rate. In seconds, little miniature rivulets of rust dust were drifting down past his paws, sliding down into the unfathomable darkness of the lava tube. In mere moments, two of the bars were totally rusted away, and that gave him enough room to squirm through it and into the open. It wasn't easy, for it was a tight fit and he had no traction on the glassy surface of the lava tube. But he managed to wriggle through, and put his paws down on a flat, level surface, a surface not of black basalt, but of mortared cobblestones.
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