by Duncan Pile
“What dya mean?” Baard asked.
“I mean that, best case scenario, Voltan appears back among us in the next few hours. Worst case, something’s kept him from getting back to us.”
“Like what?” Baard said.
“Look, let’s not speculate,” Gaspi interjected. “We don’t know what’s happened, and guessing won’t get us anywhere. We need to get moving.”
“Fair enough,” Baard said, and soon enough everyone was on their feet.
“So where do we go?” Taurnil asked.
Gaspi looked around, and realised the whole group was looking at him. It seemed that in Voltan’s absence, he was expected to take the lead. “Into the big tunnel,” he said. “These smaller ones look like they lead back the way we’ve come. I don’t want to go backwards.”
“That works for me,” Taurnil said. “Let’s go!”
Grabbing his pack, Gaspi swung it onto his back and led the group into the tunnel.
…
Gaspi ran his fingers along the wall as he walked. The texture was even rougher than it had been in the smaller tunnel, as if carved out by something much bigger and heavier than the creatures they’d found in the pit. Everyone else had to be thinking the same thing, but no-one said a word about it. Perhaps they, like him, didn’t want to imagine the scale of such a creature!
They walked on for another hour or so before Gaspi called a halt. “I think we should stop for the night,” he said.
“How do you know it’s night?” Taurnil asked.
“Loreill,” he said. The earth elemental was always aware of the ongoing cycle of day and night, which was pretty useful down here in the depths of the mountain. They could probably keep going a bit longer, but Emmy had suppressed several yawns in the last hour alone, and she wasn’t the only one looking tired. Besides, if they stopped for the night, it would give Voltan a chance to catch up with them before they got into any further scrapes.
Baard dropped his pack to the floor, and the rest of them followed suit. They ate some carefully apportioned rations, saving the little that remained for the next day. After wolfing down his few meagre mouthfuls, Gaspi’s stomach was still rumbling discontentedly. They went to sleep on the rough, hard surface of the tunnel. Talmo volunteered for first watch and sat alone in front of the group, peering silently into the darkness. Gaspi diminished his globe light to the faintest glow and tied off the spell, holding it in place with a slender energy feed from the ground.
He closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep, but he couldn’t stop thinking about when Voltan was going to return, or if he was returning at all. The more time that passed, the less likely it was that he was coming back. Had he arrived in the middle of some great crisis in Helioport that was even more important than their mission? He couldn’t imagine anything more important than what they were doing, but there was really no way of telling. Whatever the reason, if Voltan hadn’t returned by the morning they would have to assume he wasn’t going to. Gaspi remembered the way the others had looked to him in Voltan’s absence. If the warrior mage didn’t return, it seemed that he was now responsible for leading the quest to completion. Burdened by that knowledge, he lay awake for a long while before drifting off into uneasy sleep.
…
Gaspi awoke some time later with gritty eyes and a furry mouth. “Is it morning?” he asked, seeing Talmo and Sabu moving around.
“Thereabouts,” Talmo said.
“No Voltan?” Gaspi asked.
“It would seem not.”
“He’s not coming back,” Gaspi said with a sigh.
“It’s unlikely,” Sabu agreed.
The conversation woke Emmy, who groaned and sat up in her blankets. “Another horrible night’s sleep!” she said in disgust.
“How much food is left Heath?” Gaspi asked.
“Just this,” Heath answered, holding up a small, half-empty sack that Gaspi knew to contain a mixture of oats, dried fruit, nuts and hard cheese.
“Can we make it last another day or two?”
“We can try,” the druid said, pouring the unpalatable provender into wooden bowls and handing them out. Gaspi tried to be grateful for his meagre portion, filling less than a quarter of the bowl, but couldn’t quite manage it. The food situation was enough of a reason to wish an end to this quest!
“Someone wake Taurnil,” he said. Even Baard was awake, lumbering around like a confused oxen. It was Baard, in fact, who grabbed Taurnil by the shoulder and gave him a shake.
“If I’m not sleepin’, then neither are you,” the giant said. Taurnil groaned and tried to push Baard’s arm away, but on seeing who it was, he quit complaining and sat up.
Emmy sidled up to Gaspi sheepishly, her face aglow with embarrassment. “So where do we go?” she asked him, barely above a whisper.
“Where do we what?”
“Where do we go?” she repeated, flushing even more deeply.
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” he said, realising what she meant. Voltan had always chosen a spot to dig a pit for such things in the past, but now it looked like that duty had fallen to him as well. He looked around uncertainly. It was easy enough when you were outside, but where did they go in a tunnel?
“Back the way we came I suppose,” he said. Immediately he realised it needed organising, or there’d just be further problems. “Er, everyone,” he said. “We can’t dig a pit here, for…you know, so we’ll just have to go back there in the tunnel. The girls should go first.”
Taurnil started laughing, but Sabu was quick to defend him: “Someone’s got to think about these things.” Taurnil kept on chuckling but Gaspi ignored him. They got on with it, and when they’d done their business, they put their packs on and got moving.
“Just ignore Taurnil,” Sabu said to him as they walked.
“Voltan usually arranges that stuff,” Gaspi said, embarrassed.
“Have you worked it out yet? That you’re the leader now?”
“Yes I have,” Gaspi answered.
“And you’re okay with that?”
“I have to be,” Gaspi answered with a shrug.
“That’s as good an answer as any,” Sabu responded. The blademaster clapped him on the back and dropped back behind him.
It was about an hour before Gaspi brought them to a halt. “What’s going on?” Heath asked.
“Look up ahead,” Gaspi answered. “I think that’s the end of the tunnel!” He flicked his fingers and the globe light leapt forwards, coming to a stop thirty yards ahead, where the tunnel opened up into cavernous darkness the globe light didn’t do anything to illuminate. Gaspi started forwards.
“Careful,” Taurnil said, grabbing his arm. “Use the Eye.”
“Good idea,” Gaspi said. He sat down, took out the Eye, and moments later he was floating, disembodied, along the tunnel. He reached the end of the tunnel and paused, looking out into total blackness. He intensified the globe light and sent it way out in front of him, and then realised what he’d done. So he could perform magic while using the Eye. That was interesting!
His interest in that discovery was short-lived however, pushed from his mind by the staggering size of the cavern before him. It was hundreds of yards wide, a thousand maybe, and the roof rose up to unknowable heights, obscured by darkness. Around the circumference, a dozen tunnels opened onto the cavern floor. A trail led from each dark mouth, heading straight towards a pit in the centre of the cavern. This pit was much deeper and wider than the one they’d seen the previous day, perhaps two hundred paces across, its bottom lost in darkness. Gaspi considered exploring it with the Eye, but decided against it. The cavern was clearly empty.
He dispelled the magic of the Wizard’s Eye and opened his natural eyes once more. “It’s safe,” he said, rising to his feet and slipping the Eye back into his pocket. He led the group out of the tunnel and into the cavern, where they stopped and stared around in amazement.
“This place is huge!” Taurnil said.
“Uh-huh,” Baard respon
ded, craning his neck to try and see the roof of the cavern. Emmy summoned a globe light too, and sent it spinning up into the air. Rimulth and Lydia did the same, but even with all four globe lights blazing, the roof was still lost in darkness.
“It’s another pit,” Emmy said, taking a step nearer the centre of the cavern. “Just like that last one except bigger.” She stopped and turned full circle, looking at the other tunnels that led into the cavern. “Whatever formed the tunnels came out and made for this pit.”
“Just like that other pit,” Sabu said, stepping past Emmy. “Gaspi, did you go into the pit with the Eye?”
“No,” he responded.
“So let’s take a look,” Sabu said, taking another step forward. The others joined him, approaching the lip of the pit. “Don’t fall in this time Baard!”
“Shut it!” the giant said, but he stopped several feet short of the edge. Everyone else did too, leaning forwards to peer down into the depths.
“I’m not sure about this,” Heath murmured, but he didn’t step back. Gaspi drew his globe light down from above and lowered it into the pit, its light illuminating rough, blackened walls as it dropped.
“Gaspi…” Heath started, sounding uncertain.
Suddenly, Gaspi felt that same uncertainty grip him. What lay below, hidden by the darkness? The globe light dropped further, and although its light lit up the walls of the pit, it struggled to penetrate the darkness below, which was somehow thicker than ordinary gloom. Worried, Gaspi opened his mouth to warn everyone to get back when something came swirling out of the pit. It was little more than a glimmer, a slender curtain of light swirling with coruscating colours. Ribbons of light spun towards them.
“RUN!” he cried, echoed by Heath, but the glimmering skein of colour wrapped around him before he could move. White light flashed behind his eyes, obliterating all thought and casting him off into oblivion.
…
The burrower tunnelled through the rock, every wriggling motion of its long, tubular body strengthening its virgin muscles. Spikes rippled along its skin, digging into the rock and propelling it forward, acid from its mouth softening the stone in front of it as it snarled, writhed and bit its way through the mountain. It didn’t know precisely what drew it on, but it felt the irresistible call and followed.
A long time later, the rock fell away before it and it slithered into an open cavern, just as others of its kind also broke through the walls, their faces sticky with acid saliva. The call intensified. There could only be one. The creatures reared up and fell on each other, spikes ripping at leathery skin, jaws snapping wildly, acid drooling. The violent struggle scoured the very ground, grinding away the rock beneath them until they battled in a deepening pit of their own making. It was a fight to the death, and only the strongest would survive.
…
The wyrm absorbed the last dregs of energy from its slain brethren. None of them had died in vain, their life forces subsumed into its own, lending it strength and bulk. All that remained of them was a pile of lifeless husks, their potential spent. The insistent call sounded once more, but with its increased intelligence, the wyrm understood something of what summoned it. Greatness awaited – a greatness it must claim for its own. There would be others eager to establish themselves in its place, and it must hurry, or risk being out of the race altogether.
Rearing up, it thrust itself from the pit and sped at a blank stretch of wall. At the very last it spat acid and the rock melted before it. It retained the basic shape of a burrower, but it was faster, stronger, its acid more lethal. Previously it had needed to bite at the acid-softened rock, but now it glided through it like water, the sharp spikes lining its muscular body ripping an easy path through the mountain. It sped onwards, faster and faster through the rock until it burst into an enormous cavern. Rock exploded all around the edge of the chamber as eleven of its brethren flew out of similar tunnels, rearing up at the sight of their opponents.
The call boomed in its mind. Only the greatest can survive! Lifting its head, it let out a full-throated roar, acid spraying from its mouth like a fountain. Others trumpeted nearby, but they sounded feebler to its ears. Falling to the ground it lurched into motion and sped at one of its rivals. All twelve wyrms rushed to the attack, and when they clashed, it shook the very rock of the mountain.
…
It lay bloated on the leathery husks of its dead rivals, hidden in the shadows of a deep, deep pit. They had fought viciously, but in the end it had prevailed, as it had known it would. It had absorbed every last morsel of their strength, succour to its hungry flesh. Even now it felt sleep calling, its massive, bloated body a cocoon for the ultimate transformation. Sleep might take decades, or even centuries, but when it was time to emerge, it would do so in its final form; it would do so as a dragon.
Thirty-nine
For a long time, she didn’t even know that she existed, but then something spoke to her consciousness, a call she couldn’t identify. She ignored it for the longest time, but it didn’t fade. Slowly, she felt curiosity awaken in her and, with a thought, she opened herself to the insistent voice. An image filled her mind – an image of glowing eyes and flapping wings. Slowly it came to her, though she didn’t know where the knowledge came from – it was an elemental. A spirit of fire. But what was it saying? She listened intently and the message crystallised. She was in danger. She must awaken.
But who was she? Why was she here? Where was here? A name teased her, hovering just beyond her grasp, and then it clarified, echoing fulsomely around the halls of her mind – Lydia! That’s who she was.
The moment she perceived her name, her consciousness broadened, bringing heightened awareness. Of course she was Lydia! As if she’d be anyone else! And the fire spirit had woken her, but that was as much as she could work out. She still didn’t know where she was, in this great, everlasting blackness. She felt a moment’s fear, but pushed it aside, trying to concentrate. Why was she here on her own? Where were her friends? Lights flickered into being, spread widely through the great dark. Each glimmered with a distinct hue of its own. The nearest was pale rose. Drawn to it, she drifted through the space between them, though she didn’t know how she was moving. She felt the fire spirit’s presence, protecting her from…something. She approached the pale rose light and reached out to it, understanding instinctively that it represented one of her friends, a soft, gentle soul with great inner strength. Emmy!
The pale rose light intensified as Emmy’s consciousness awakened, brought back to awareness by her call. Lydia looked at the other lights, each one a manifestation of someone she cared for, and somehow she knew that if she failed to awaken them, they would never do so again. Filled with a sense of urgency, she glided to the nearest light, this one coloured sky blue, and after a few moments of careful listening, called Rimulth’s name. The tribesman’s consciousness was immediately enlivened and, without waiting, she looked around to find the next light. It was bright green, the colour of growing things, and without drawing near, she knew it was Gaspi. The moment she thought his name, the light glowed brightly and floated over to join her. Realising she didn’t need to move between the lights, she tried the same with the next light, a burnt orange globe she knew to be Taurnil. One by one she called the rest of them - Baard, Sabu, Talmo, Heath until then they were gathered in one place, their combined presence straining the fabric of this strange reality.
In the company of her friends, memory returned to her in full. They’d travelled through the mountain, following the network of tunnels (thoughts of creatures burrowing their way through the rock flashed before her mind’s eye). They’d come across a pit (memories of battle and victory distracted her for a moment) and had passed through a much larger tunnel until they reached an enormous cavern (a much greater battle played out in her mind, a battle of fearsome wyrms seeking to be victorious over their brethren). They’d approached the edge of the pit, and there had been overcome by…something.
And now they were trapped
here, nothing more than blobs of light, glowing and glimmering in the great dark. But then again, maybe they weren’t trapped. Maybe if they just willed it to come to pass, they would just…wake up.
…
Gaspi opened his eyes. He was standing at the edge of the pit, his friends on either side of him, blinking and looking around as they came to. The strange, spinning skein of light still played around them, but it no longer touched them. The source of their protection was immediately evident – the fire spirit flapped in front of them, exuding a wave of elemental power. It surrounded them like a shield, keeping them safe from the strange, hypnotic light.
A mighty consciousness arose from the pit. Gaspi felt it coming, an ancient, powerful presence as vast as the cavern it inhabited. For a moment, he thought it would crush him to dust.
“Is it time?” it asked, the thought echoing in his mind. No sound was actually made, but it was as if someone had shouted right inside his head. It was deafening!
“It is not,” a voice responded, this time spoken aloud. Gaspi was stunned to realise it was Lydia, flooded with elemental power.
“The day is coming,” the voice said. Gaspi slammed his hands over his ears but it didn’t make any difference.
“But has not yet come,” Lydia responded. “Sleep Great One!”
There was a long pause. “I will sleep…”
The consciousness withdrew, sinking back into the pit. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but for a moment Gaspi thought he saw something down there; the faint outline of a massive, horned head, and the open crack of a glistening eye. But then the crack closed and the depths of the pit were dark once more.
“We need to move! Now!” Lydia urged. As one, they scurried away from the edge of the pit and rushed across the vast chamber. When they were a couple of hundred yards distant, they could make out the far wall of the enormous cavern.